


All These Little Lives

by w0rdinista (Niamh_St_George)



Series: Amelle Hawke [8]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Ficlets, Gen, meme fills, prompt fills
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-16
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-01-08 23:23:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 43,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1138695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niamh_St_George/pseuds/w0rdinista
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Amelle Hawke ficlets, prompt fills, and fiction-meme replies.  </p><p>This collection will likely include interludes from both the "From the Ashes" universe and the Laudanum and "Lyrium universe," as well as game-canon pieces and just-for-fun AU prompt fills (any and all kinds of AUs) that were too short to put anywhere else (and didn't quite fit into "What Are All These Kissings Worth?").</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prompt Fill: Zombie Apocalypse AU

**Author's Note:**

> An anonymous ficlet-meme prompt-fill requesting Fenris/Amelle in a zombie apocalypse AU. Nonny gets "From the Ashes" 'verse at no extra cost. :)
> 
> This is complete, as far as I'm concerned. The meme was SUPPOSED TO BE a three-sentence meme, but this one got away from me a bit (ahahaha haha ha). Whoops?

She’d been a doctor, once upon a time.

It hadn’t been terribly glamorous; Amelle was still young, still new, still driving the same clunker she’d driven since undergrad, and still low enough on the totem pole that almost nobody had listened when she’d—

Well. She’d been content, at any rate.  The sort of contentedness that comes from knowing you’re on the right path, finally.  Finally coming into her own, finally learning who she was, finally inching out from behind Kiara’s shadow.  Amelle still winced to remember the semesters she’d struggled in pre-law—a pressure placed on her by nobody but herself.  Dad had been the one to sit her down in the middle of one bleak winter break, gently but firmly pointing out how unhappy she so clearly was, right before—again, gently but firmly—reminding her how much she’d always preferred her anatomy and biology classes to anything else.

He’d been right, of course. And the moment she’d switched to pre-med, she was happier—her grades had improved, too.  A win-win situation, all around.

They’d been so thrilled, so proud when she’d got the job at the hospital in Denerim.  So thrilled that Amelle didn’t tell them about the long hours in the ER.  Didn’t tell them about snatching sleep when and where she could, though it was seldom at her apartment.  All of that didn’t matter—she’d been happy.

Until the first victim.  

Patient.

_Victim._

She’d called it early on—it wasn’t a flu, wasn’t any sort of flu _she’d_ ever seen, at any rate.  And when she’d reported her concerns to Drs. Orsino and Quentin, they’d all but patted her on the head, very gently implying she hadn’t seen enough in the course of her career to make a judgment like that, and sent her back to the ER.  

Dr. Irving, though… he’d listened.  He’d even been the one to call in the CDC by the time the fifth patient turned up—the same day after the first two had died.  Amelle didn’t know the particulars regarding the deaths—she’d been in the lounge, trying for at least one full REM cycle at the time.  All she knew was that patients were being admitted with fevers that would not break.  Impossible fevers that climbed and climbed, responding to nothing—no treatment, old or new—until the victim was delirious, until they hallucinated everything from dead lovers to winning lottery tickets.

And all the while, this high, resistant fever ate away at them, until their bodies could not fight the intrusion any longer.  Then those patients died—screaming at hallucinations and thrashing in their restraints, they died.

By the time the CDC had shown up—a dour doctor named Stannard and her less dour, earnest colleague, Dr. Cullen—there were at least a dozen bodies in the morgue, and more who’d be heading that way if something didn’t change.

A fever.  Nothing more, nothing less.  No evidence of communicability, either.

Until Amelle had found the bite.

A patient’s embarrassment is a doctor’s worst enemy.  Nobody really wants to admit they were bitten by a human being.  Humans are meant to know better, after all.  But as Amelle examined the most recently admitted patient, she saw, there on the inner arm, two near-perfect arcs, like a pair of angry parentheses in the skin.

She’d checked the chart to find a hastily scribbled note about an altercation with a belligerent drunk and the tetanus shot that had been administered after the fact.  Curious, she checked the previous patients’ files and found, buried within the admittance notes, vague mentions of trauma attached to flimsy excuses: _kitchen accident, garage accident, gardening accident._

A lot of accidents, even for an ER—a lot of accidents for people who weren’t coming to have _those_ injuries treated, but rather the fever that followed.

Stannard and Cullen were at an off-site lab one morning, but had been due back before noon, so she’d gone down to the morgue to see for herself, to photograph the mystery wounds if it hadn’t been done already, and to see if they might yet pin down how this damned thing was spreading.  

And why the hell people were evidently _biting_ each other.

But Amelle hadn’t been prepared for the sight that had greeted her upon pushing open the morgue’s heavy door: a woman, grey-skinned and nude, hunched over a body—no, not _a body_ , but the morgue attendant, Sketch—

The pool of blood in a wide circle around her, her grasping hands, the wet, chomping noises, the sound of tendons snapping—

She was _eating_ him.

It was then Amelle had become dimly aware of the pounding coming from inside the walls.  Inside the refrigeration units.  

Pounding like something trying to get out.

She remembered very little after that—only that the hospital had never seemed so large and Amelle so small and slow.  She’d barricaded the door to the morgue with any and everything she could find, seeing Sketch’s slack, dead expression every time she closed her eyes.

Once the door was barricaded, she’d called Dr. Irving from one of the basement lines.  

There’d been no mistaking the dread—the _fear_ in his tone as he’d told her, “Go home.  Somewhere safe.  You’ve family, don’t you, Dr. Hawke?  Go to them.”

She’d tried to argue—she _had_ —but in the end she’d left, sprinting across the parking lot to her old clunker, driving away and never looking back.

Until now.  Six months and countless deaths later.  Dad. Carver. Mom.  It was only she and Kiara left amid a collection of rag-tag survivors.

“If I’d been _thinking_ ,” she muttered, glaring up at the huge building, “I’d have raided the pharmacy before I _left._ ”

She wondered if those pounding bodies had ever made it out of the morgue.  Probably.

She wondered if her barricade had held.  Probably not.

She wondered if there were morts still inside.

_Probably._

Morts.Greys. Stiffs. So much easier than calling them “the undead” or worse, “zombies.”

“You had more important things on your mind, Mely,” her sister replied from the front seat, pulling up to the building.

“Aye,” Sebastian agreed—as ardently as Kiri denied it, _something_ was going on there; Kiara didn’t let just anybody ride shotgun.  “Like your own survival.”

Amelle wrinkled her nose.  Her own survival, indeed.  She ought to have stayed, ought to have helped, ought to have tried to get some of the patients _out of the building—_

A ghost of a touch made her look up to find Fenris watching her solemnly, as if he could read the guilt and grief in her expression.  “You did what was necessary,” he said in an undertone.

“I could have done more.”  That was the story of her life, wasn’t it?  Could have done more, could have yelled louder, could have been more insistent—

Fenris’ fingertips brushed over the tops of her knuckles, curbing the sudden font of self-flagellation.

She swallowed at the touch.  Perhaps there was something going on _here,_ too.

“You are doing more _now._ ”

“All right,” Kiara announced, killing the engine.  “We get in, hit the pharmacy and cafeteria, and get the hell out.  Anything useful catches your eye, grab it.  Med supplies, candy bars spilling out of a broken vending machine, weapons—“

“In a _hospital_?” Amelle asked.

Kiara’s storm-grey eyes flashed with a grin in the rear-view mirror.  “Never know what you’re going to find, sis.”  The grin faded after a moment.  “You don’t have to go in, you know.  You can stay here, be the getaway driver.”

With a snort, Amelle shook her head.  She knew what this was about—what it was really about, and it extended far and beyond Kiara’s general propensity toward overprotectiveness.  She was a doctor, and doctors were a breed in dwindling supply these days.  “No way,” she argued. “First off, nobody here knows that place better than I do. It’ll be a quicker trip in _and out again_ if I’m there.  You’re shaving off time with me there and cutting down the chances of getting separated or turned around or taking a wrong turn.”  

Amelle thought of what likely remained of the pediatrics wing and barely suppressed her shudder.

“You’ll need me in the pharmacy, too, for that matter,” she added.

“You could’ve drawn us a map,” argued her sister, “written us a list.”

“It’s quicker with me in there, Kiara, and you know it.”

Kiara exhaled hard—her way of getting the last word in without saying anything at all—and nodded.

They all clambered out of the Jeep; Sebastian opened up the back, revealing their spread of well-worn weaponry.  He handed Kiara her crossbow, slinging his own on his shoulder, while Fenris opted for a pump-action shotgun and sleek black pistol—one of a pair; he offered Amelle the other one. What remained was an array of knives and various makeshift weapons, both blunt and sharp.  Foregoing the pistol, Amelle helped herself to a baseball bat—it had belonged to Carver and though Amelle wasn’t superstitious, the heavy wood always felt reassuring in her hands—and a screwdriver; the former went into the bag slung across her chest, empty but for a few of her other preferred implements, the latter went into a back pocket.  Fenris, Kiara, and Sebastian all shouldered empty packs to collect supplies—ages ago Kiara started making a habit of keeping a tightly-folded garbage bag in her pocket on supply runs such as these, just in case.  Now they all did.  

“I’ll take the flamethrower,” Amelle told him, strapping a sheathed knife to her thigh. 

Kiara laughed, a harsh, unexpected sound.  “In a _hospital,_ Mely?” echoing her own words back at her.  Amelle thought of the oxygen tanks still inside and nodded grimly.

“Take both,” Fenris said, nudging the pistol’s grip into her hand before buckling a machete to his thigh.  

It was always better to be overprepared than underprepared, so she took the gun, checking the safety twice before sliding it into the waistband of her jeans, against her back.  Amelle then hefted the flamethrower into her arms before slinging its strap across her chest, opposite her bag. 

Through this, Kiara checked their radio batteries one last time.  

“ _Yes,_ a hospital. What’s the problem? I thought you loved fighting in hospitals, Kiri.”

“No, that was antique stores,” Kiara replied, her grin crooked as she handed one walkie-talkie to Fenris and keeping one for herself.

“But only if they’re classy,” Sebastian added, throwing a smirk Kiara’s way.  “And then there’s the electronics stores…”

A sudden blush heated her sister’s cheeks and she glared to cover it.  “Come on, you three,” Kiara said, closing the Jeep with a sharp bang. “Daylight’s burning.”

Amelle’s memory of the hospital—she couldn’t quite stop thinking about it as _her_ hospital—was that of a bright, busy hub of activity, where sunlight streamed through tall windows and, though quiet, there was always, _always_ the hum of movement, of _life_ , even in the middle of the overnight shift.  

The place they walked into was every bit as dark and silent as a tomb.  Daylight still filtered through the windows, but those windows were cracked and grimy.  The air was thick with dust and the stale scent of neglect and decay.  There wasn’t a sound around them, but for the soft crunch of debris under their boots.  

Swallowing hard, Amelle nodded at the large display map on the wall, with its cheery red dot labeled “YOU ARE HERE.”  She tapped the dot with a fingertip.  “Like it says on the tin, we’re here.”  She brought her fingertip to the easternmost corner of the ground floor.  “Pharmacy’s right here.”  From there, she drew a straight line up and over to the northwest corner.  “Cafeteria’s here.”

“Well, that’s the absolute opposite of convenient for us,” remarked Kiara, darkly.  After a moment, she let out a deep breath, blowing her sweaty red fringe away from her forehead.  “Okay, I want to make this as fast as possible.  Amelle, you and Fenris take the pharmacy.  Sebastian and I will raid the cafeteria.  Less chance of us finding anything there, I think; we’ll double back and wait for you here.”

Amelle blinked.  “Are you honestly suggesting we split up?”  One eyebrow crept upward.  “A lifetime of rotten horror movies, and this is the plan you come up with?  What, is phase two of your plan for you and Sebastian to make out in a broom closet?”

“It’s quicker in and quicker out,” Kiara reasoned hotly, glaring at Amelle.  “Plus, the cafeteria’s probably a lot easier to find than the place where all the drugs live.  _Plus,_ I don’t have high hopes for the cafeteria.  If we’re going to waste our time, I’d rather it be while at least half of us are doing something productive.”

“So if things go sideways, at least the drugs will make it back?” Amelle asked, her tone growing sharp with frustration and impatience.

But rather than exacerbating the argument, Kiara only flashed Amelle a vulpine grin.  “Mely, if you think I have any plans on checking out of this world while _raiding a hospital cafeteria,_ you don’t know me at all.”  Then she tapped the radio strapped to her thigh.  “And we’ll be in contact.  You two come across anything you can’t handle, just call the cavalry.”

She didn’t want to agree, but after a long second, Amelle nodded.  “All right.  Same to you, though.”

“Fair enough.”  Then Kiara sent Sebastian a conspirator’s grin, as if the two shared a private joke, and this time it was Sebastian’s turn to blush.  

 _Definitely_ something going on there, decided Amelle.

“So Fenris,” Kiara said, clapping a hand on his shoulder.  “Take care of my little sister, and we’ll meet back here.”  Fenris nodded solemnly; it was no secret to Amelle why Kiara wanted him to watch out of her—his lyrium-nitrate markings had been part of an early experimental “vaccination” program.  But the procedure had only managed to kill every participant but Fenris—though whatever had been done to him had turned every hair on his head perfectly white. Amelle wasn’t entirely sure how the lyrium-nitrate worked, exactly (nor did she understand how it hadn’t killed Fenris, because lyrium-nitrate absolutely was not the sort of thing meant to be drilled into the skin), but the compound had evidently changed his body chemistry enough that the zombies couldn’t scent him—they could _see_ him, but couldn’t follow or track him.  Once he was out of their sight, they forgot about him—like a ghost.

“I… I still don’t like splitting up, Kiri.”

“I know,” she replied, somewhat more gently this time.  “But I don’t like the idea of staying in this place a second longer than we have to.  So go load up on penicillin and painkillers and we’ll see what exciting canned goods might be hiding in the larder.  I am daring to hope for some beef jerky, too.”

And then, with crossbows up, Kiara and Sebastian started off through the main atrium, which would, Amelle knew, take them directly to the cafeteria.  She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders as she looked over at Fenris.  “Well?” she asked, nodding at the long corridor that led eastward.  “What do you say?”

Fenris frowned into the darkness.  “We should move on.”  

“Sounds good.”

The hospital’s emergency generators had long since run dry, and it wasn’t long before the natural light from the lobby faded into murky grey.  Fenris pulled a small flashlight from his belt and snapped it on as Amelle pulled her own from her jacket pocket—

And promptly swore.

The mort had been an orderly once—had been a _man_ once—but now there was little left of him but a torso with stretching arms and clawing hands as he pulled himself toward them, leaving a trail of slime and rot behind him, milky eyes wide and hungry as he gasped and hissed at them through a ruined jaw.  Fenris brought his boot down with a sickening crunch, and the thing that had once been a man trembled a moment before going perfectly still.

“Well that answers that question,” Amelle murmured, carefully sidestepping the corpse.

“You doubted there were any here?” Fenris asked, taking no pains to mask his surprise.

She wrinkled her nose in answer, even as she swept the beam of her flashlight along the floor.  “I didn’t… doubt, exactly. I just… I suppose I just wanted to believe everyone got out okay.”

“Considering how empty the hospital is, I think many were able to escape.”

Amelle swallowed hard, looking at the trail of wet filth streaked across the floor.  “I hope so.”

“You… still feel guilty.  For leaving.”

“I do, a bit,” she admitted.  There was no point in denying it, after all.  “I was told to run, and I ran.  Not exactly a shining example of the Hippocratic Oath, wouldn’t you agree?”

“ _Do no harm,_ ” he said in an undertone.  

Amelle nodded, taking no pains to hide her flinch.  “I left.  I just…”  Trailing off, she shrugged.  “Don’t tell me I did no harm that day.  If nothing else, it was gross negligence.”

“…Who told you to run?”

“My department head,” she answered, still moving her light slowly back and forth.  “He told me to get myself somewhere safe, to go to my family.”

“Perhaps he felt if you had stayed, _he_ would have been in violation of the oath as well.”  The beam of Amelle’s flashlight went still as her steps slowed, and she was silent long enough that Fenris said, “You had not thought of that.”

“I hadn’t.”

He nodded once.  “Consider yourself lucky he believed you. Such was not the case in other cities.  You may well have saved lives.”

Amelle gave herself a shake and resumed scanning the floor with her light while Fenris kept his beam focused on the darkness in front of them.  “You’re trying to make me feel better.”

“I am telling you the truth.”

Before she could reply, though, there came a soft scritching and low, ragged moans—sounds so familiar to Amelle by this point, she heard them in her sleep.  Nightmares were more common than sweeter dreams, these days.  As they drew closer, the scent—by now as nauseating as it was familiar—intensified.

Fenris drew his pistol, but laid a hand on Amelle’s arm as she reached back for the flamethrower.  “Save it.”

“For?”

“For when we’re on our way out and it doesn’t matter what’s aflame.”

“I suppose that’s… a fair point,” Amelle conceded with a sigh.  She slid the bat free from her bag instead, and gripped it hard in one hand, her light in the other.

They rounded a corner, flashlights up, to find a between eight and ten greys littering the length of the hallway—possibly more than that hiding in the dark beyond the reach of their beams.  One wore a filthy, bloodstained lab coats that was once pristine white, a badge clipped to the front—a doctor—and before she could think better of it, Amelle lifted her eyes to what remained of his face to find Dr. Orsino’s rotting, ruined features staring at her.  He turned and began shuffling towards them, his hands outstretched, his fingers curling into claws.

“Shit,” Amelle muttered, lifting the bat.

“You knew him?”

Amelle sighed.  “I did.  He… didn’t believe me.  Insisted it was just a very resistant flu.”

“To his detriment.  How many do you count?”

She swung the light back and forth, counting silently.  “At least eight.  Maybe more.  Pharmacy’s at the very end, on the right.  Unfortunately, there are a few patient lounges back here, good places for them to hide.”

“I doubt they _hide_ , Amelle.”

“Fine—good places for them to shuffle around aimlessly until someone edible comes along.  Maybe we should—no, if Kiara’s main concern is not wasting time… hell, there’s no telling how long it’d take for them to reach us.”  Amelle turned off her torch and slid it back into her pocket.  “I have an idea.”

“What sort of idea?”

“Um,” Amelle said lightly, one hand rummaging in her satchel.  The morts had taken notice of them now and were beginning to shamble closer.  “Well, to be perfectly honest, I’m fairly sure it’s a bad one.”

Impatience grated along Fenris’ tone.  “Well?”

“Run.”

_“What?”_

“Run,” she said again.  “As fast as you possibly can.”

“ _That_ is your idea?” Fenris argued in an undertone.  Snapping one tattooed arm out, he gestured down the dark corridor.  “Can you see?  Because I cannot.”

Amelle only grinned and finally pulled her hand from her bag.  “Oh, I have something for that.”  

What she held made Fenris’ eyebrows lift.  “Flares.  Impressive.”

“I’ve been saving them for a special occasion,” she said, waggling one invitingly.  “How do you feel about a little mood lighting?”

The corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk that made her heart pound in a way that had nothing whatsoever to do with mortal terror; it was a pleasant change.  “Surprisingly optimistic.”

Once lit, the flare bathed the long corridor in bright red light, illuminating at least twice the number of morts from where they stood all the way down to the pharmacy.  The sudden light didn’t surprise them, for they were beyond surprise.  It didn’t blind them, either, unfortunately.  It was simply a change in their environment and they turned toward the light—and Amelle and Fenris.

“Be careful,” she said, twisting her suddenly sweaty palms around the bat’s handle.  

“And you,” Fenris replied, his machete unsheathed in one hand, shotgun in the other.

“Last door on the right,” she reminded him.  “Don’t stop for anything.”

Before Fenris could comment—or argue—Amelle hissed _“Now!”_ and took off at a run.  Behind her he growled out a foreign curse and sprinted after her.  They moved faster than the zombies, though the latter lurched and grasped, and one—a hissing, snarling patient in a stained, torn gown and robe—lunged for her, rotting fingers catching on Amelle’s jacket, on the strap of her satchel.  Pivoting and throwing all her weight behind the bat, she swung hard, until it slammed hard into the thing’s head, stopping with a sudden, wet crunch. The gripping fingers went slack and the mort fell.

In the flickering red light, Fenris ducked and darted around two, pausing long enough to bring his blade down in an arc, cleaving the top of one’s head in two, and kicking the other in the chest; the zombie’s ribcage gave way and it stumbled backwards, still—not _alive,_ but still clearly a threat.  Pulling the blade free, he lunged forward, driving the machete deep into the undead thing’s forehead.  All in the space of seconds.

Still they ran, still they darted and dodged in the mad red light, slicking the floor with matter with every grey they dispatched.

Amelle didn’t see the crawler pull itself out—out of one of the very patient lounges she’d goddamn well warned Fenris about—until it was too late.  Her boot came down hard on the woman— _not a woman, stop thinking about it as a woman_ —on the _thing’s_ forearm, snapping it easily, but the rot and skin and matter filled her boot’s treads, giving Amelle no purchase against the floor.  She slipped, her leg shooting forward as she fell, her back slamming hard against the floor, knocking all the breath from her lungs as the pistol lodged hard against her tailbone.  Carver’s bat hit the floor with a hollow clatter and rolled out of reach.

Something grabbed her leg.

_“Amelle!”_

Despite the wind having been knocked out of her so completely, Amelle struggled to scramble to her feet, but the thing had its remaining arm wrapped around her leg.  She reached for the screwdriver in her pocket as wide, hungry jaws clamped down on her ankle.

Three sharp, staccato shots followed, one after another, and the woman’s head exploded in thickened blood, ruined brain, and shattered bone.  

Gun still in hand, Fenris hefted Amelle to her feet with far more ease than she would ever have expected, and dragged her the remaining yards to the pharmacy.  He flung the door open and, finding the room vacant, threw them both inside and slammed the door hard behind them, plunging the room from blood-red light into pitch black darkness.  Amelle sank, trembling, to the floor.  Scant seconds and countless breaths later, the bolt turned.

With a soft snap, Fenris’ flashlight illuminated the space around them.  “Let me see it.”

“Fenris—”

_“Let me see it.”_

Without another word passing between them, Fenris dropped to a crouch and yanked the leg of her jeans up—

To find her boots tightly laced halfway up her calf.  Clumps of partially-congealed blood and other matter clung to the leather—to the spot where the thing had been trying to bite her even as Fenris shot those rounds into her head.  Two more than were absolutely necessary, but Amelle didn’t remark on that.

Trembling fingers hovered over her ankle before curling into a fist as he exhaled a long, shaky breath and bowed his head.

“It’s all right,” she said quietly.

“No,” he replied, shaking his bowed head.  “It is not.”

“I tried to tell you I’m _fine,_ ” she told him, reaching out and stretching her fingers under his chin so he’d look at her.  A muscle twitched in his jaw and though he looked up, Fenris did not meet her eyes.  Instead his gaze fixated on a spot just above her right ear.  “A little sore, and I’ll be bruised as hell in the morning, but I’m _fine._ ”

“There were too many seconds I did not know that. I only saw—” He stopped, jaw tensing, throat moving as he swallowed.  

“Only saw the conversation with Kiara where you had to explain how her idiot sister got herself ki—“

Without preamble, without warning, Fenris slanted his mouth over hers, swallowing Amelle’s words in a kiss.  There were no shy, hesitant brushes or teasing nibbles; no, there was only heat and urgency, long fingers sliding up the side of her neck and back into her hair as his lips parted and she groaned, clutching at him, trying to match his intensity with her own.  Sparks exploded behind her eyelids and Amelle only hoped it was the kiss and not a concussion.  Her back ached and her tailbone throbbed, but Fenris’ mouth was hot and demanding, which turned out to be one hell of a painkiller. His fingers tightened in her hair and she pulled him closer, fingers drifting along his cheek before she wrapped an arm around his neck, shuddering as his tongue slid against hers.

The sharp static crackle from Fenris’ radio made his lips go suddenly still.  Kiara’s tinny voice drifted up from the little speaker.

“Fenris?  Mely?  Do you read?”

When Fenris pulled away to answer, Amelle barely quelled muttered curse that tore from her throat.  

He pulled the walkie-talkie free.  “We’re in the pharmacy, Hawke.”

“Good to hear,” she returned.  “Any problems?”

Amelle shook her head, but Fenris scowled at her.  Amelle shook her head more vehemently, and the silent argument lasted long enough that Kiara spoke up.  “Fenris?  Did you guys have any trouble?”

He exhaled hard through his nose.  “Your sister… fell.”

“ _What?_   Is she—”

Amelle snatched the radio out of Fenris’ hand and depressed the button.  “I’m fine, Kiri.  I slipped in something better left unsaid.  My backside’s sore and my pride is dented; other than that, I’m fine.  I didn’t… you know.  _Fall_.  I just fell.”

The relief in Kiara’s exhale came through clearly, for all she tried to hide it.  “Well.  Lucky for you you’re—“

“In a pharmacy.  I know.”  She handed the radio back to Fenris, listening to their exchange.  Evidently, Kiara and Sebastian had come across a few surprising and promising stores of food—very few greys, too, though Kiara attributed that to the unholy stink permeating the cafeteria—and would check in again before they headed back to the rendezvous point.  

Conversation over, Fenris returned the radio to its sleeve.  Amelle looked up at him, biting down on her lower lip.  “So what…” she trailed off and swallowed hard.  “What was that?  Exactly?”

A hundred expressions flickered across his face until an utterly unreadable one settled there.  Looking down at Amelle’s hands, he said, “Continue to refrain from getting bitten, and perhaps we’ll both find out.”

The urge to close the distance between them and kiss him again nearly blanked out common sense entirely, but Amelle remembered where they were and what was left for them to do, and she slowly pushed to her feet, grimacing; she ached from head to foot—especially her head.  Fenris hand slid beneath her elbow, warm, like the rest of him.

“How bad is it?” 

“Like I told Kiara, I’m really glad to be in a pharmacy,” she replied, pulling the pistol free and pressing curious fingertips to the tender spot at the small of her back.  Wincing, she swore and shook her head.  “That’s going to be a hell of a bruise tomorrow.  Damned ankle-biters.”

The flashlight beam froze.  “What did you call it?”

“An ankle-biter,” Amelle said again.  “Can you think of a better name?”

Several seconds passed.  “No,” Fenris said finally.  “I cannot.”

“Maker’s breath,” she murmured, pulling her own flashlight free and snapping it on.  “I think we hit the motherlode.” Her beam joined with Fenris’ to reveal a nearly untouched cache of as many medications as one could think of; from asthma inhalers to the strongest opiates, countless bottles and boxes lined the shelves.  A few items on the shelves were missing, a few things in disarray but it looked as if whoever had come in had taken only what they’d needed at the moment and left again, perhaps assuming they’d be able to come back when they needed more.

That was one hell of a dangerous assumption.

Forgoing her satchel completely, Amelle dug in her pockets until she freed the tiny folded square of plastic.  She shook out the garbage bag and began sweeping boxes and bottles off the shelves as Fenris followed suit.  The room’s silence was filled with pills rattling in their plastic containers as the fell, one after another after another, into the bags.  Perhaps some semblance of selectivity would have been a good idea—Amelle doubted they needed it _all,_ and these weren’t non-perishable goods with an eternal shelf-life—but time was of the essence and medicine was in short supply.  Besides, there was a chance they could use anything they didn’t need as currency to barter with some of the other nomadic settlements in the area.  It wasn’t as if any of it would go to waste.

Amelle’s hand froze, mid-swipe across a shelf. She picked up the carton she was so blindly throwing into her bag and looked at it.

“What’s wrong?” asked Fenris, noting her sudden stillness.

“It’s not going to last,” she breathed, as if it were a revelation—and, in a way, it was.

His brows furrowed into a frown.  “This is more than the settlement can use in a year.”

“Exactly.”  She shook her head, sweeping the flashlight beam across the shelves.  “There are only so many hospitals, Fenris.  Only so many pharmacies.  This… this is a limited commodity we’re dealing with here.  What the hell are we supposed to do when there isn’t any more?”

He looked down at the carton he held—a half dozen boxes holding cylinders of asthma medication—and, slowly, comprehension settled on his features.  “You’re saying this is… a stopgap.  Nothing else.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

He lifted his eyes to meet hers.  “Then you think it is unlikely this… situation will ever be resolved.”

“I think I’d like nothing better than to be wrong.  But… yes.  That’s my fear.  That we’ll use up our stopgaps and be left with… nothing. Zip.  No contingency plans.”  Her smile turned bitter.  “Think about how long the power’s been down.  Vaccines are fragile—they don’t stand up well to temperature fluctuations. They need to be kept in specific climate-controlled conditions, or they’re useless.  That means no more influenza vaccines.  Hell, do you know how many people the Antivan flu killed?  Hundreds _._   _Thousands._ Illnesses we’ve always taken for granted would never come back around—we’re going to reach a point where mort bites are the absolute least of our problems.”

“If any of us live that long.”

Amelle stared at Fenris for several long seconds, blinking.  “Maker, and I was afraid I was being the cynical one here.”  She exhaled hard through her teeth and turned her attention back to clearing the shelves.  “Yes.  I suppose.  If any of us live that long.  Although,” she added in an undertone, “I plan on staying around as long as I can.”

“I… am pleased to hear it.”

Once the shelves were clear and their bags bulging, Amelle and Fenris swung their lights around the rest of the pharmacy, but there was little left they could use.  They found a stash of medical supplies in an adjoining storage room, and when there was nothing more they could comfortably carry, Fenris pulled the walkie-talkie free to contact Kiara, while Amelle swept the room with her light, eyes keen for anything they could have missed.  

Whoever the head pharmacist had been, he—or she—had kept a neat, meticulous space.  There were notes written in small, controlled script, stuck to the computer monitor.  A corkboard off to the side held photographs and little inspirational quotes, glimpses of a life that included crayon drawings, smiling children, and a dog.  Amelle thought of Cupcake, waiting for them back at the settlement, and felt a pang.

Next to the pharmacist’s keyboard was a memo referencing a patient who’d been an orthodox Andrastian and, as dictated by her religion, could accept holistic treatments only.  It was signed by Dr. Irving.

“Fenris?” Amelle murmured, still staring hard at that note.

His conversation with Kiara over, he came over to where she stood.  “Have you found something?”

“Something interesting.”  She tapped the sheet with a fingertip.  “Dr. Irving was working with the pharmacist on a patient.”  The crease between Fenris’ brows urged her on.  “A patient who couldn’t take conventional drugs.”  She tapped her fingertip more rapidly.  “He had a compendium of medicinal herbs in his office.”

Once he figured out where, exactly, her conversation was leading him, Fenris shook his head. “Amelle, _no_ —“

“We’re _here._   Mightn’t we as well make it count?”

“We are leaving with medication and food.  We have made it count.”  He exhaled a frustrated noise that resembled a growl and shoved a lined hand through his hair.  “Your sister and Sebastian are already on their way back to the lobby.”

“If we can get that book, I can start… I can start _planning,_ Fenris.  I can start looking for what we might need when things start to get scarce— _when,_ not _if._   Because I think we’ve all figured out by now that whatever the hell this is, there is no easy fix.”  She held out her hand.  “Give me the radio—I’ll tell Kiara. I won’t make you be the one to argue with her, not over this.”

Grudgingly, Fenris handed her the walkie-talkie and Amelle got through to Kiara.  

Much as she’d expected, the conversation did not go… smoothly.  Anything that began with, “ _Are you out of your Maker-forsaken mind?”_ did not bode well for anyone.

Amelle made much the same argument as she had with Fenris; unfortunately, Kiara was much more adept in countering Amelle’s arguments—which only made sense, as she’d had decades of practice already, which had only prepared her for a legal profession where she’d honed her skills further.

Finally, Amelle said, “We have no plan.  We have no idea how long this cache is going to last.  It may not last as long as we hope, if we wind up using some of it as currency for trade.  Much as I want to believe somebody is going to find a way out of this mess, I don’t have that kind of confidence, Kiri.  And I don’t want to lose anyone if we don’t have to.”

An impossibly long silence followed before Kiara’s exhale filled the tiny speakers.  “Maker’s balls, Mely, I can see your puppy-dog eyes from _here._ Fine. _Fine._ We’ll find this damned book of yours.  But Sebastian and I are coming to you, and we’re going up together.”

“Kia—“

“Not negotiable, little sister.  It’s this, or I tell Fenris to carry you back here over his shoulder.”

Amelle’s blush was sudden and hot.  “Not funny.”

Kiara snorted.  “Who’s joking?  Hold tight; we’re on our way.”

When the radio went silent, Amelle handed it back to Fenris, who slid it back into place with little more than a nod.  Twenty minutes later, the walkie-talkie crackled with Kiara’s voice.  She was swearing.

It was Fenris who answered with a curt, “Hawke?”

“Please don’t tell me this is your hallway.”  

When Kiara said nothing else, Fenris replied, frowning, “Given we’re inside a locked _room…”_

“You can hardly answer that.  Got it.  So how bad was the traffic when you two made the trip?”

“We encountered hardly more than a dozen and dispatched more than half.”

“Uh huh.  Do me a favor and take a look now.”

Together, they crept to the door. Fenris unlocked it as quietly as possible and pulled it open a few scant inches—enough that they might both look out.  The hall was lit with another flare, this one bright and blue, illuminating at least three times as many greys as there had been, most of them milling about, shuffling in aimless circles, as if lost and looking for something.  And since they couldn’t scent Fenris, it was _her_ that had drawn them there.

_Damn it._

Kiara’s voice crackled again.  “Are you two down there?”

“We’re here,” Fenris answered, grimly.

“All right.  Okay.  I think the best way to flush this is if we both work from opposite ends.”  Somewhere behind Kiara, Sebastian said, “The chance for crossfire’s too great,” and Kiara swore again.

“Flamethrower?” Amelle offered, helpfully.

“Only if you’re sure you won’t catch a couple of oxygen tanks and make the whole wing explode.  I don’t mind doing that as a finale, but if we’re going to be hanging around for any length of time, we might want to keep the incendiary events to a minimum.”  Kiara sighed, hard.  “All right.  We’re going to draw them away from you.  Once your door’s clear and you’ve got some room to move, flank ‘em.  And we’ll… just try really hard not to shoot each other.”

“You know, Kiri,” Amelle observed, “as far as plans go, ‘try not to shoot each other’ is lacking somewhat in detail.”

“It’s better than _run,_ ” muttered Fenris under his breath.  Amelle shot him a scowl, but he only shrugged, his expression impassive.

Though definitely lacking in detail, the strategy was an effective one.  Sebastian and Kiara drew the greys away, far enough that Fenris and Amelle could make it out of the pharmacy.  Fenris gripped his machete tightly in one hand—Amelle had her screwdriver in one hand, and a knife in the other; she scanned the hallway floor, squinting against the flare’s light, until she spotted Carver’s bat, lying harmlessly about three yards away.  She nudged Fenris and pointed to the bat.  He frowned, but nodded.

 _Be careful,_ he mouthed.

Thankfully, greys knew nothing about strategy and less about the concept of being flanked.  At one end of the hallway, Kiara and Sebastian shot arrow after arrow after arrow in rotting skulls, pulling them free and reloading them.  Sebastian had a crowbar in his other hand—that was new—and Kiara wielded a golf club, swinging it fiercely when she didn’t have the time or room to aim or shoot.  Amelle rushed up behind a shambling Mort wearing a paramedic’s uniform; her right arm was a gory mess of torn flesh and bite marks, her blond hair lank and matted with yet more blood.  Gritting her teeth, Amelle slammed the screwdriver into the back of the thing’s head, stepping back as it tumbled forward with a slick, wet noise as it slid off the screwdriver.  

Every tiny step brought her closer to the bat.

Another Mort lurched out of one of the side offices, hissing at Amelle as it stretched clawing fingers at her face.  With a swear, she moved to the side and swung her knife around, the sharp blade driving into the Mort’s temple.  It fell like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

“Amelle,” Fenris shouted, “to your left!”

She did, ducking instinctively as she went, turning just in time to see the butt of Fenris’ shotgun slam into a grey’s growling, hissing mouth, sending it sprawling back at the same time as it removed the lower half of the jaw.  The machete came up next, slamming down hard into the mort’s skull, stilling it.

Her foot nudged something, and when Amelle looked down she found Carver’s bat rolling back and forth; it was filthy, and clumps of brain matter stuck to the finish, but it was still the most welcome sight she’d seen in recent memory.  She picked up the bat in time to slam it hard into a bloated security guard.

Just then an arrow whizzed by her ear.  “I thought you said no shooting each other!” shouted Amelle.

“Shit!” Kiara yelled.  “Sorry!”

Amelle and Fenris were slowly, slowly closing the length of hallway that remained between them and Kiara and Sebastian.  There were no more stray arrows, but an increasing number of fallen morts, and by the time Amelle reached Kiara’s side, the hallway looked like nothing less than a battlefield.  Which, she supposed, it was.

Once the coast was clear, Fenris sprinted back for the bulging plastic bags of medicine and supplies.

“We hid ours in the lobby, under the reception desk,” Kiara offered with a shrug.  “Just in case we aren’t the only ones scavenging this place.”  Then her face lit up in a smile Amelle hadn’t seen since before the… since before.

“What?” asked Amelle as they walked.

Kiara’s grin broadened.  “We found _coffee._ Real, ground coffee.  Not that instant shit.”

“And creamer,” Sebastian added.  “Sadly, that _was_ instant.”

“Still,” Kiara said, shrugging, “ _creamer_.  We’ll be drinking like kings and queens.  Or at the very least, princes and princesses.”

After the medicines were hidden along with the cafeteria spoils, Amelle led them to the hospital’s main stairwell.  Crossing her arms over her chest, she cast the door a dubious look.  “They… can’t climb stairs, can they?”

“Let us hope not,” Fenris said in an undertone as Kiara twisted the handle and swung the door inward.  The stairwell was pitch dark, but reassuringly silent.  One by one, they all switched on their flashlights, casting four beams around the space like frantic spotlights.  It was, so far as they could tell, clean, and so they began to climb.

“We want the eighth floor,” Amelle supplied.

The climbed in silence.  Amelle tried not to think of which wards each floor had held.  Oncology.  Obstetrics.  ICU. Cardiology. Pediatrics.  

People who’d come here to _get well_.  Even if they hadn’t come here to get well, even if their illnesses were terminal, they’d still deserved peace.  Not…whatever had happened instead.

Kiara laid a hand on Amelle’s forearm, giving it a gentle squeeze when she jumped, as if she knew Amelle’s thoughts.  Knowing Kiara, she probably did.  “Eighth floor, Mely,” she said, as they reached the landing.  Kiara opened the door a crack and listened, then opened it wider and cast her flashlight beam around, eyes sharp for anything that moved.  The flashlight, as it turned out, wasn’t necessary—the space was awash in natural light.

“It’s quiet,” Kiara breathed, opening the door fully.  “Quiet as far as I can tell.  Keep your eyes open.”

The eighth floor was indeed quiet, Amelle realized.  It consisted largely of hospital administrators’ and department heads’ private offices, and one lavishly appointed lounge.  Perhaps it made sense this area was deserted—appeared to be, anyway—once the shit had hit the fan, the doctors and surgeons either would have stayed out of duty or gotten the hell out of Dodge at the earliest opportunity.

Despite Fenris’ words, she still winced to remember which _she’d_ done.

Everything remained quiet as they passed suites of smaller offices and larger private ones.  Amelle listened so hard her nerves ached with it—dread and anticipation combined—as she peered around every corner, waiting, _waiting_ for something to appear, to grab her ankle, her arm, to sink its teeth into her—

Amelle startled at the warmth of Fenris’ fingers upon her elbow, but those fingers were warm and pulled her away from thoughts of cold, grasping hands; when she looked back at him, she saw quiet concern reflected back at her.  She shook her head, telegraphing _I’m fine_ as hard as she could.  Dr. Irving’s office was just ahead.  They could get the book and go back downstairs and maybe, finally, somebody would let her use the flamethrower to torch this damned place and all its ghosts.

“Dr. Irving’s office is the next one on the right,” Amelle murmured, casting a quick glance around them.  Once, silence had been golden, had been something she’d loved. Now, it was nothing short of unnatural and wrong.  She couldn’t see anything, but that didn’t meant there wasn’t anything to see.

“Okay,” Kiara said, stepping aside.  “You go in, get what you need.  Sebastian and I will keep watch, make sure there isn’t a repeat of the pharmacy.  But _be quick about it_ , Mely.”

Amelle nodded and moved toward the door.  Nobody commented when Fenris followed.  She gave the doorknob a twist and a push, but the door opened easily on noiseless hinges and swung closed behind them almost as quietly.

A series of wide windows took up almost an entire wall, the other three of which were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, filled to overflowing with medical books and journals of every stripe.  Amelle had always liked Irving’s office, always warm with sunlight, with its plump leather chairs and its vibrant patterned rugs thrown over cold tile, and its _books_.  

Her sudden, sharp stab of nostalgia and sadness vanished the moment she turned and saw a body crumpled behind Irving’s vast cherrywood desk, old blood spread out in a dark pool.  

 _“Shit,_ ” she hissed, as Fenris uttered another unfamiliar invective.  She shot him a sidelong glance.  “You may have to teach me that one,” she said quietly, stepping closer to the body.  “Sometimes cursing in the mother tongue leaves a little to be desired.”

Fenris nudged the body with the barrel of his shotgun; it remained still.  He rolled it over and turned away at once, gagging at the sight.  Even in a world where the undead walked, very few were blasé over the sight of natural human decay.  

“He’s been dead a few months,” she said, covering her mouth and nose with her sleeve as she crouched down.  “Winter was pretty rough, though—could’ve helped preservation a bit.  Hard to say, exactly.”  With her free hand, Amelle reached into the dead man’s pockets, searching for ID, for something— _something_ was familiar about him, but decomposition that extensive made anyone hard to place.  

A short search yielded a wallet, which solved the mystery quickly enough—Dr. Cullen, from the CDC.  When Amelle told Fenris, his brow furrowed in thought.  “Perhaps he realized he was infected and took his own life.”

“Maybe.”  Amelle rubbed her hand over her mouth, sitting back on her heels and looking down again at the remains.  

And then she saw it.  

“Or… maybe not,” she murmured, pointing at the small, neat hole in the dead man’s bloodstained shirt.  Just above his heart.

Fenris lowered into a crouch as well, frowning hard at the body, his earlier disgust—if not forgotten, at least shelved for the moment.  “Then perhaps he was infected and someone else killed him.”

“Unlikely.  He was shot in the heart, not the head.”

Fenris tilted his head in unpleasant comprehension.  “Somebody who didn’t think he’d be found.”

Amelle met his eyes and arched one eyebrow.  “Somebody with something to hide?  Or keep hidden?”

“In the midst of chaos is the best time to manage a deed like this.”

Expelling a long breath, Amelle nodded.  “Unfortunately, I think you’re right.”  

“I take no satisfaction in it.”

“Duly noted.”  Amelle raked a hand through her hair—there wasn’t time to muck about with murder mysteries; survival trumped all else.  And since it had been her idea to come up this way, better not to waste any more precious time.  “We need to find those books and get the hell out of here.”  

“Agreed.”  Fenris nodded at the window.  “We’ll be losing daylight soon.”

That was motivation enough.  Morts were a hell of a lot more aggressive once night fell—it had, she knew, something to do with the moon and the same gravitational pull that affected the tides, but the _why_ of it was far less important than the fact that it happened at all.  

Preparatory to pushing up to her feet, Amelle planted her hands on the floor, when something sharp pressed into her palm. 

“ _Ow_ , dammit.”  She jerked one hand up with a jerk, shaking it out.

“What—“

“Nothing, it’s—something jabbed me.”  She frowned down at the plush, patterned rug, running her fingers across the surface.  There, half-buried in the strands, half lost in the pattern, was a tiny rectangle.  She picked it up between her fingers: a flash drive, a smear of blood and hair marring the matte black surface.

“What do you suppose that is?” Fenris asked, eyes darting briefly down to the dead man and up again.

Amelle turned the little thumb drive over in her hand.  “I think I’m quite interested in finding out.  You?”

“I am as well.”

“Come on,” she said, pushing to her feet and pocketing the drive.  “We need to get those books and get out of here.  I’ll show Kiara what we found—think her laptop still has some juice left from the last time she used Anders’ generator.”

“I believe Hawke will be just as interested as we are to determine the drive’s contents.”

Shaking her head, Amelle turned to the first wall of books.  “And I believe your talent for understatement remains unmatched.”


	2. Dark Ficlet February Challenge: Zombie Apocalypse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The "Dark Ficlet February OTP Challenge" included a number of prompts, one of which was "The end of the world as we know it" calling for any "terrible, world-ending scenario." 
> 
> For this prompt, I decided to write a... not-entirely-cheery sequel to the zombie AU fic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: violence, character death (both implied and direct).

Sometimes things move too fast, and sometimes they move far, far too slowly.

Amelle isn’t sure which is happening right now.She knows she’s running as fast as she can, legs pumping until they burn, until her lungs burn.

_—the world is burning and there’s no one to put it out—_

But she’s moving too slowly.Like trudging through molasses.

She has no more rounds.All she’s got is a knife.Fenris’ knife, that he pulled from his sheath and flipped to her, worn leather grip first, the moment he heard her gun click uselessly.

And then.

And then.

_—the smell, she can’t take the smell, she’ll never forget the smell—_

She still isn’t sure how.Fenris is too fast.Too sharp.Too— _Fenris._ They aren’t supposed to smell him, but they can see him.Through ruined, milky, rheumy eyes, they can still see.

_—jaws that bite, claws that catch—_

One sees him.One is enough.

She screams his name—she doesn’t care that more will come, she doesn’t _care_ that they’ll follow the noise, follow her screams—she screams his name, because that is all she can do, running, running—

_—too slow, too slow—_

He turns—just in time, he turns, pistol raised, but the dead thing—the thing—

It has no right to be so fast.

The skull explodes in shards of bone and clumps of matter.Fenris sinks to his knees.Foolish, foolish, she’s so foolish, she thinks everything’s fine, thinks it was just a close call—they’ve had so many close calls, what’s one more?

Amelle falls to her knees, heedless of the mud, of the rotting dead things—truly dead, now—sprawled around them, not caring about any of it, because Fenris is fine, he’s fine, he’s _fine._

Fine, but for the bloody arc in his forearm.

“No.”

She doesn’t remember saying the word, but she hears it tear past her lips.It is defiance.Rejection.

“No.”

It is a plea.

 _“No._ ”

It is a realization.

_“No!”_

It is a refusal.A refusal of truth, of proof, glaring at her from a bloody bite.

He looks at her; he already knows.

Amelle looks at the knife in her hand.The blade is filthy.Sharp, true, but sharp enough to cut through bone?They are too far from the settlement, too far from her supplies—

“We have to go,” she says.How does she sound so calm?“We have to go back.We have to leave _now._ ”

 _—leave before the infection spreads; before it takes him, before it takes him_ too _—_

Fenris opens his mouth as if to argue, then bows his head and stands.They have seen this happen too many times to too many people.They know what comes next.Fever.Hallucinations.Death.  

Death, and then something else.

They are too far from the settlement.The infection will already have begun to spread.It will be—Amelle knows, she _knows_ —too late for an amputation.But she will not wait and watch and _do nothing._ She has lost too much by now.Amelle was too slow once, she will not be too slow again. _She will not._

They climb in the Jeep and Amelle drives as fast as she dares— _faster_ than she dares, really—always keeping one eye on Fenris.His arm is wrapped in an old sweatshirt he found in the backseat.The shirt is Amelle’s, emblazoned with her alma-mater, from a time when things like that mattered.

It matters now.Reminds her who she is.Reminds her what she is.

She can save him.She can fix this.She can save him.

She doesn’t care to think of the alternative.

The lookouts see the Jeep bouncing over the terrain, splashing through puddles, and raise the gate.She doesn’t stop; she doesn’t stop until—

 _“Amelle—“_ The first word he’s spoken since the bite.But she doesn’t run the Jeep into the clinic.It is a very near thing.

The ‘clinic.’What it is is a repurposed RV.But it’s clean, and it has what she needs.

They both know what she has to do.They both know it is likely too late.

Fenris is already flushed with fever by the time she hauls him inside.She tells herself it’s shock.Tells herself it’s anything but what it is.She tells herself that it’s not a fever, that it doesn’t _count_ unless she’s taken his temperature first.As long as she doesn’t take his temperature, he doesn’t have a fever—doesn’t have _the_ fever—and is going to be fine.

They are silent as she finds what she needs.Alcohol (it is the last of the rubbing alcohol; that was more important this morning).Gauze.Hacksaw.

She has no local anesthetic.They ran out last week.

Amelle turns to face him, and it isn’t until she blinks that she realizes there are tears in her eyes at all.

“…Fenris?”

He’s flushed and shivering.

“It… has started.”

 _No.No. No._ No.

She touches his cheek; the skin is hot to the touch.She brings her other hand to his face, cradling it, fingers stroking the too-hot skin.

“Stay with me,” he murmurs, the words pulled from him, one by one.As if she would do anything else.

Amelle dresses the bite because that’s what she knows.She dresses it despite Fenris’ protests that it is a waste of resources.She doesn’t care.This is what she knows.She thinks it might make her feel… less useless, somehow.

It doesn’t.

By the time the rest of the camp has learned what happened to Fenris, his is deep in the throes of fever, scarcely registering visitors.He is on a cot, the canvas turning dark with his sweat.Amelle sits by his bedside, holding his hand, because that is all she can do.He shivers no matter how many blankets she covers him with.

He makes her promise she will do what needs to be done, later. After.

He doesn’t let go of her hand.Until the hallucinations begin.

Fenris shouts invectives at her, calling her “Danarius” and threatening to tear out her heart and feast upon it.

He calls her by her dead sister’s name and confesses his growing affection for Amelle.

He cries out for someone named “Varania,” shouting hoarse pleas for forgiveness.

He claws at his bedding, thrashing, swearing, at once too hot and too cold—

And then he is silent.Still.He exhales, long and slow.Final.

It is over.

But not over. 

Not completely.

Not yet.

She was a doctor, once upon a time.A healer.A fixer of broken things.

It has taken the world ending for her to realize there are things that will not be fixed.

It’s not over.Not yet.

The pistol is cold and heavy in her hand in the silent makeshift clinic.She presses the barrel to his forehead.

_—I have promises to keep; and miles to go before I sleep._

 


	3. Dark Ficlet February Challenge: Werewolf AU

He smells wrong.  

It wasn’t he sort of wrong she’d have been able to catch back when she’d been bipedal, smiling over the rim of her wineglass into eyes that refused to smile back.  He’d been distracted at dinner, distracted and agitated—nearly as agitated as she’d been, come to think of it.  Oh, Amelle knew well enough how to hold off her change, and if anyone was worth the itching in her blood, the prickling discomfort of fingernails that ached to lengthen to claws, the scratch of fur pushing against skin—if anyone was worth it, it was Fenris.  Fenris of the unsmiling eyes, with a voice like the bark of an oak rasping against a bare back.  

He was worth the gamble, worth pushing her luck like this—or, at least, she’d thought so.

Until somewhere between the appetizer and main course she’d looked down to spy thin tufts of wood-brown fur sprouting from the top of one hand.  And with that thin stream of adrenaline, shock and dread and _anger_ —anger at herself, at her lineage, at the damned moon itself—collapsed in on themselves, leaving nothing but instinct.  Instinct she’d been fighting since the sun set, since the moon had risen, every bit as bright and round as a silver coin.  

And as her teeth grew longer and sharper inside her mouth, instinct had dictated she flee, so she’d fled.  She’d fled and hidden, giving in to the heat in her blood as she _turned_ , leaving nothing behind of herself but a pile of clothes she hadn’t quite managed to avoid tearing in her haste.  

She’s gone no further than two city blocks when she hears it—there, nearly lost between the click of her claws against the concrete, are footsteps.  Turning her head, she sniffs the air, letting the scents settle in her brain, sifting through them until—

_Fenris._

All she needs is to get to Sundermount—somewhere she can run and hunt and howl, where even the packs of feral mabari give her a wide berth, as if they too sense she is not all she appears.  As if they too realize she doesn’t smell quite… right.

But as Amelle moves, Fenris follows.  When she runs, he pursues.  When she hides, he _stalks._ Hunts.

She does not know if he knows what she is, but she’s certain he knows what he’s hunting.  And she has no doubt he _is_ hunting.  The glint of the long silver barrel at his hand tells her that.  She backs further into the shadows, pushing back hard against instinct’s call, demanding she lunge and bite and tear whatever dares hunt _her._

But then he gets closer.

And it’s there, there in the cramped stink of a Lowtown alley, thick with spilled ale and stale urine, she smells him.  Smells it _._

He smells almost—almost like one of _them_ —close, but not quite.  The scent-mark of possession, of _ownership_ lingers on him, and Amelle barely remembers to smother the growl before it uncoils from her throat.  If he finds her, he won’t care _what_ she smells on him. 

If he finds her here, nothing beyond his aim is going to matter.


	4. Dark Ficlet February Challenge:  Werewolf AU (cont.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DFF Challenge: Physical ailments (knife/bullet wounds; illness/fever)

The pale moon bathed the alley in silver light, illuminating all but the deepest, darkest shadows thrown by a dumpster overflowing with trash, and an old bed frame propped against it, its tarnished brass headboard casting twisting curlicue shadows that sprawled across the asphalt at his feet, like curling, grasping claws.

His pistol a reassuring weight in his hands, Fenris stepped closer to one shadow in particular, where a pair of eyes glinted at him from the dark.  

Lowtown was never quiet.  But the call of traffic, of heavy trucks and grinding gears sounded further away now, barely audible over his pounding heart, over the grit of his boots against the pavement—

Over the whisper soft scrape of claws against the same pavement.  

Raising his gun, he stepped closer.

It had almost— _almost_ —been a normal evening. His first date in years—his first date during a full moon in longer than he could remember.  And he’d been enjoying himself, much to his surprise. But Dr. Amelle Hawke was clever, witty, and attractive.  Perhaps he’d not said very much over drinks, but there were few pleasures greater than conversation with a beautiful woman, and so he’d been content to simply… listen.

But then Hawke had stepped away from the table to make a phone call and, otherwise unengaged, Fenris had turned his attention out the restaurant’s wide plate glass windows in time to see a dark shape, with prick ears and a long, bushy tail streak past.  

Stray dogs were not a common sight in such a tony Hightown neighborhood.  And _that_ had been no dog, stray or otherwise.

Leaving his apologies for the lady with the maitre’d, Fenris dropped several bills on the table—it pained him he was losing money he could scarce afford to spend on food he wouldn’t even be eating, but his pride was considerable enough that he wasn’t going to stick the good doctor with the bill, even if he knew she’d have protested his chivalry.  Pushing down the pang of guilt, Fenris left the restaurant at a jog and followed the wolf’s trail—easier said than done traveling across concrete and asphalt, but the moment he caught up with it, the wolf led Fenris down twisting side streets and narrow, filthy alleys.

Its route grew more erratic with every turn, until it took a left down a dead end—there was no escape here, just hiding places that offered temporary refuge.

And now he had it trapped.

Fenris did not listen to the soft, whispering voice that crooned to him, pointing out the beast was hiding, and so effectively.  Werewolves, in his experience, tended not to be so reticent.

Another step closer and from the shadow came a low, warning growl.  _Yes, this is more like it._

“Come out,” he said, “and meet your end with honor.”

Several heartbeats ticked by; he didn’t expect the beast to acquiesce at all, so it was even more of a shock when one furred paw stepped into the pooling moonlight.  Then another.  Brown fur fairly glowed in the soft illumination, tufts catching it and going silver, despite the fact so much of the animal’s shape was still hidden in in the gloom.  It stood there, unwaveringly, a study in light and shadow—and then the wolf lifted its head and regarded him with a cool, steady, green gaze.  Intelligence sparked there as it looked him up and down.

 _Familiar_ intelligence.  In familiar eyes.

Oh, no.

_“You don’t strike me as the type who likes fish, raw or otherwise. Let’s go for steak instead.”_

Steak she’d ordered rare, with a wink and a joke to the waiter.  

_“Just pass it over the flame twice.”_

Fenris thought again of Hawke’s haste as she’d pushed away from the table.  Her quick, clicking steps.  Her hands clenched at her sides.

The wolf blinked and cocked its head, as if taking his measure.  With the movement, there  came the glint of metal in its fur, and he knew—damn it, he _knew_ there in its ruff, a bird in flight dangled from a slender chain.

_“It’s a hawk,” she’d explained.  “Gift from a friend with an incredible literal streak.”_

The wolf threw its—her?—head back, letting loose a howl that pierced the night, drowning out even his own thundering heartbeat.  When it looked at him again, every muscle in its body was coiled, ready to spring, to strike—

To charge.

Training overtook all else.  He squeezed the trigger and the pistol discharged as the wolf swerved in front of him.  A long, sharp yelp scraped his ears, bouncing off too-tall buildings, followed by a snarling, growling bark as the wounded—what was this cool rush of relief he felt?—wolf barreled into him, knocking him aside before running into the night, a spattering trail of blood in its wake.

He found it two blocks away, lying still on the sidewalk.  Its sides heaved with effort as it breathed, whimpering with every labored inhale.

Absolutely certain he was going to regret this in the morning, Fenris crouched by the still, bloody animal, running his fingers through the fur at its neck.  He wanted to be wrong—he’d never wanted so badly in the whole of his life to be _wrong._

Then he found it.  A golden chain around the wolf’s neck.  From that chain hung a bird in flight.

A hawk.

_“Venhedis.”_

#

Fenris woke to the gentle rush of water running.  Swamping disorientation followed before he pried open one eye to find himself stretched out on an unfamiliar sofa.

No.  _Not_ unfamiliar.

The night before came back to him in flashes.  Pieces.

He’d carried the wolf back to the restaurant, searching the narrow back alleyway before finding a set of hastily hidden clothes and a purse.  Hawke’s.  He’d then used her ID to find her home, and her keys to let them into it.

Covering Hawke’s vast, soft bed with towels, he’d set the wolf upon it and cleaned the wound to the best of his ability, deciding that dressing it would have to wait until the morning, provided she didn’t kick him out at first sight.

And now it was morning.

And the shower was running.

Not sure what to do with himself, Fenris sat up.  Grisly streaks of blood smeared his dark shirt, concealed well enough in the dark, but in Amelle Hawke’s living room, cheerfully awash with natural light, he saw only too clearly just how extensively he’d been bled on (very extensively, as it happened).

Soft, padding footsteps came down the hall and Fenris stood, powerfully and intensely unsure of himself.

Hawke walked into the living room, clad in pink silk pajama pants and a pristine tank top, shower-damp hair combed back.  Her right shoulder was clumsily swathed in gauze enough to mummify her if she’d so wished.  She came come no more than three steps into the living room before, nostrils flaring, she stopped suddenly and turned to level a coolly assessing stare at him.

He’d seen that stare before.

Hawke blinked green eyes once.  Twice.

“You,” she breathed.

Swallowing, he inclined his head.  “Yes.”

“You… _shot_ me.”

“I did.”

Her stare cooled into a glare.  “Come back to finish the job?” she asked.  Then she frowned and took a step closer, breathed in deeply, and looked down at the couch. The cushions were still dented from where he’d slept.  “No,” she murmured, half to herself.  “You stayed.”

“Also true.”

“Why?” she asked, watching him closely, as if she were able to divine any falsehood by simply _looking_ at him.  “Why did you stay?”

The truth lodged in his throat, but swallowing would not loosen it.  His eyes flicked down to the floor, to Hawke’s bare feet with their scarlet-painted toes nearly lost in the plushness of the carpet.  When he looked up again, it was to find that unnerving green gaze still fixed on him.

“Why did you stay?” she asked again.

“When I realized what I had… done, I… wished to attempt to… help,” he said, hardly believing the words as he spoke them.  “If I could.  I imagined you might need assistance mending your wound once you had returned to your bipedal state.”

“Well, _that_ may be the worst apology I’ve ever heard.”  When he bristled Hawke stepped even closer.  “You shot me, Fenris,” she growled, flicking one hand at her bandaged shoulder.  “You _shot_ me.”

“I am fully aware of what I did,” he countered hotly.  “I ask you to believe I did so thinking I had no other choice available to me. I thought—“

“What, that I was going to maul you?  Yes, because that’s exactly what an animal _hiding from you_ has on its mind.  Mauling.  Feasting.  Gorging itself on your entrails.”

He strode closer, voice lowering.  “Do not joke and pretend your kind are not dangerous.”

“I’m the dangerous one?  Which one of us is the one bleeding?  You _shot_ me.  On our first date!  I don’t know where you come from, but where I come from we keep the shooting for the fifth date, fourth at the absolute earlies— _ouch!_ ”  In her agitation, which had been steadily growing, Hawke had swung her right arm out—a gesture her injury took issue with.  Closing her eyes and muttering a particularly vehement swear, she tucked her arm in close to her body.  “In any case,” she said coldly, “I don’t need your help.  I’m a doctor.  I can patch up a simple gunshot wound.”

“On your dominant side?  While wounded?”  He sighed, raking fingers through his hair.  “Allow me to do this as recompense.  Afterward… I will leave you be.”

“Until the next time our paths cross during the full moon, you mean,” came her sharp retort.  “Two more days in the cycle; you’ve got time enough to perfect your aim.”

“And yet you’ve not rejected my offer of help.”

Hawke sighed, bowing her head, jaw flexing as she gritted her teeth.  “Fine,” she said finally, the word sounding as if it had been pulled from the depths of her.  “I’ve got a proper first-aid kit under the kitchen sink.  You get that, and I’ll make coffee.  Can you stitch a wound?”

“I can.”

“You know, I had a feeling you’d say that.”


	5. Dark Ficlet February Challenge: Obsession (Werewolf AU)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DFF Challenge: Obsession (stalking; possessive behavior; Character A thinks about Character B so much it’s borderline/full-out creepy, etc.)

She wanted him.

No.  No, it wasn't as simple as that.  “Want” was not the sort of thing that made her pace her home like a caged thing, teeth gritted and fists clenched.  With every turn, with every circuit, the base need to breathe in his scent again soaked into her lower brain and set it aflame.

“Want” did not explain why she still thought of him now, a month after he’d shot her in an alleyway, then slept, blood-smeared, on her couch (his scent was still there, hidden in the upholstery like a secret), to wake the next morning and sew her wounds shut.  Even then Amelle had found it difficult to be so near him, separated by only thin layers of clothing.  That proximity had only strengthened the strange note within his scent—the mark of another werewolf, and akin to an olfactory neon sign screaming PRIVATE PROPERTY: NO TRESPASSING at her.

And yet, Fenris hadn’t acted like someone who’d had that hanging upon him.  For that matter, Amelle knew of no one marked in such a way who had ever then turned around and started hunting werewolves.

Well.  All werewolves except her, evidently.  Passing odd, that.  

Amelle stopped at a window and looked out.  Dusk was settling, and as the final beams of fading sunlight threw longer and longer shadows that would slowly stretch and fill and become _night,_ that same old restlessness surged up in her again.

Gritting her teeth in a frustrated snarl that reflected back the flash of white teeth at her in the glass, Amelle turned away.

It was madness.  Idiotic.  Asinine.

And yet, as the prickling rush grew beneath her skin, as the need to change flowed unchecked in her blood, Amelle neatly and carefully stripped her clothes from her body and left them in the laundry basket by the washing machine, like she always did before turning.  And as she lowered herself to all fours in time for her blood to pulse hot, for her fingernails to thicken and curve, for the itching press of fur pushing through her skin, one thought pulsed through her brain like a heartbeat all its own.

She needed to see him.

She needed to smell him.

And she needed to rip apart whoever had dared mark him.


	6. Dark Ficlet February Challenge: Haunting (in-game universe)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ghosts, hauntings (whether by external source or a dead character.)

It starts simply enough.  Items moved from one spot to another.  Innocuous items.  Harmless things.

A bottle of Amelle’s favorite perfumed oil, Antivan in origin, a thrillingly guilty pleasure procured from one of the Hightown merchants—that bottle placed precariously on Fenris’ weapons rack, the tiny vial of oil sitting perfectly balanced in the very center.

An old grimoire, the only thing she has of her father’s, slid from its shelf and balanced atop an unopened bottle of Agreggio.  Strange, certainly, and enough to make Amelle wonder if Fenris perhaps has too much time on his hands these days, but other than that she thinks nothing of it.

But then the length of red silk Fenris wears around his wrist goes missing.  It had been there when he’d stripped for his bath, and then… gone.  Gone, and no amount of searching or swearing reveals its whereabouts.  Its absence troubles him, for all Fenris tries to hide it. Amelle catches him rubbing absently at his wrist, the place where he’d carried that blood-red favor all those years.  He looks for it, even when he thinks she doesn’t notice, but the silk is gone without a trace.

Gone, until Amelle wakes from slumber one night, eyes flying open, mouth working soundlessly—she cannot _breathe_ , something is around her throat, tight, pulling tighter, tighter, _tighter_ and she claws at it with one hand, grasping at Fenris’ still sleeping form with the other.  He wakes in an instant and she has never been more thankful that he is a light sleeper.  He wakes with a start, instantly alert and rolling over to push up on his knees in a single fluid motion.

The light is barely enough to see by—embers dying in the hearth ease away only the darkest shadows, but he does not need to see to know something is wrong.

The embers flicker and dim— _fire_ , she thinks madly, fire or ice or _something,_ but she cannot breathe, and if she cannot breathe, she cannot cast—Maker’s blood, _she can’t breathe._ Mana rises helplessly in her, spurred on by fear, but without breath it is weak, in the way a brushing touch against a door tries to be a knock.  Useless sparks flare and die at her fingertips as her fingers scrabble desperately at the silken knot pulling tight at her throat.  Fenris’ hands are at her neck now, pulling at the silk, but the knot tightens and her lungs feel as if they might burst.  She can’t— _she can’t_ —

Cold metal against her neck comes next, a stinging scratch, the soft tear of silk under a sharpened blade.

And then air.  Deep, gulping mouthfuls of air.  She sits up—she’s cold, so cold, and her face is damp with tears.  Fenris’ hands are warm on her arms as he guides her up, supports her, holds on as if he knows how close she came to—

“What happened?” he asks harshly.  “What—“

And then he looks. The length of red silk has fallen in two long pieces, like twin smears of blood against their bedding.  Amelle shakes her head, drawing in a long, ragged, rasping breath as she drags lightly questing fingertips one one hand across her throat. The other swipes at the dampness at her eyes.

One jumping, unsteady breath later, the fireplace is ablaze.

Another breath, and she has at least healed herself well enough to speak.  Amelle is trembling throughout, as if the sharpest winter chill has sunk through her skin and blood and into her bones, into the very marrow of them.  She certain at that point she will never feel warm again.

The fire goes out, suddenly, completely, plunging the room into darkness.  The moon outside is new, and its silver glow isn’t enough to permeate the gloom, but Amelle breathes in and flings an arm out, sending a rippling rush of energy to the hearth; it hits the logs and catches with a whoosh of air and then there’s light again, though the flames flicker strangely, shuddering against a wind no one can feel.

At least there is light, but the room is cold, a cold the fire cannot pierce.  It sends frost spiderwebbing across the windows, across her looking glass.  Their breath drifts out in white eddies.

“I don’t suppose you have a theory,” she mutters, her voice hoarse and rough and wrong as she swings her legs over the side of the bed and makes her slow, cautious way to where her staff rests against the weapons rack.  Whatever it is, it’s tried to kill her once, and that isn’t the sort of thing Amelle is inclined to forgive or forget.

“Do you mean to say,” Fenris replies, and he already has his Blade of Mercy in hand, and perhaps they look ridiculous in their bedclothes, armed to the teeth, “you _don’t_ believe it to be demonic in origin?”

“The thought had crossed my mind.”  Her fingers close around the staff as the fire gutters out again.  The cold is worse now, bitter and brittle so every breath hurts; the stone floor chills Amelle’s feet through the thick rugs.

The fire gutters out again in a gust of icy air.  

And then, creeping up through the cold, like strands of latticework, comes the _smell._

Fenris’ sharp inhale scrapes across her nerves, because Amelle knows what it is.  And she has only started to suspect what _this_ is.  _Who_ it is.

The smell—the stink—filling the room like a fog is the smell of lyrium burning.

Fury ignites deep in her, like Fenris’ markings—which are already ablaze—and Amelle breathes in, pulling at her mana and conjuring fire until it licks to life in her palm, flickering hungrily up her fingers.  It is bright and hot, and it pushes back at the cold, at the _stink_ , at—

Every lantern in the room flares to life, flames burning at least six inches high, casting the room into light.

The room is covered in frost—the walls, the windows, the surface of her writing desk.  Thick, white frost.  And in that frost, words have been scratched.  The same words, over and over again, across the walls, the windows, the surface of her desk:

**HE IS STILL MINE.**


	7. Dark Ficlet February Challenge: Angels/Demons AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Demons / fallen angels / angels / any mythological equivalent.

_Angels_ , he thought, barely suppressing his snarl, the word dripping with derision in his mind.  He did not spit at her feet, but it was a near thing indeed.  

Her fallen brethren had enslaved his kind.  Enslaved and branded and tormented him until years, centuries, millennia blended into each other and he could remember nothing else.  Nothing but his brands and servitude, until servitude and pain and finally—finally _hate,_ raw and black and hotter than hellfire coalesced inside him.  Until escape was an obsession.  Freedom a temptation he could not ignore.

And why ought he to ignore temptation?  Irony?

So he’d escaped.  He’d escaped, thinking himself _so very clever_ , stepping into the sunlight, so very different from hellfire.  He’d blinked and lifted up one hand to shield his eyes only to find his brands remained.  They remained, even in the mortal realm, marking him for all to see.  Marking him as a demon.

Marking him so that he might be easier for them to hunt, when the whim hit.  It hit often, frequently preceded by the sound of beating wings, if for no other reason than they thought it was funny.  

Now, for all his evasion, for all his efforts, Anso had brought him… an angel.  He could not blame Anso.  Well, he _could._   It would be easy—even satisfying.  But the man was not sensitive to otherworldly beings.  There was no way he could have known.  And Fenris ought to have known better than to place a mere mortal in such a position.

Granted, he’d never in his wildest dreams expected Anso to find an _angel_.  It hadn’t seemed the sort of thing he needed to warn against.

“What do you want,” he ground out through clenched teeth.

She smiled at him, all benevolence he knew time would prove to be false.  Fenris saw no difference between them; the Fallen Ones were just as beautiful—they had been angels, too.  They had, ostensibly, been _kind_ once.

“Speak,” he snapped, “or else I will cut the wings from your back.”

The expression shifted from a smile to an incredulously arched eyebrow.  “My, you’re a prickly one.  Is that any way to address someone who’s come to help you?  No wonder you’ve been stuck here this long.”

“You?” he barked.  It was not laughter; his throat could not produce such a sound.  “Help?”

“I,” she replied.  “And yes.”

“I do not need your help, or the help of any of your kind.”

“On the contrary,” she replied with maddening certainty.  “You do.” 

With that word she pinned him beneath her gaze—green eyes that were too green, too _bright,_ like staring into the sun, like staring into—no.  No.  _No._   He jerked his eyes away, blinking hard, eyes burning.  She was nothing like sunlight—it was dim by comparison.

“I know what you’re looking for, Fenris,” the angel said, strolling closer.  He dared not look at her again, but he held his ground all the same, lifting his chin in the only show of defiance he had at his disposal.  

And then she touched him, a gossamer brush of fingertips against his forehead, flooding him with warmth and light and—and _memory._ Color and warmth and—

No.  It was not real.  Could not be real.

With a gasp, Fenris pulled away, batting at her fingers with the back of his hand.  “Do not touch me.  _Never_ touch me.”

“I know what you’re looking for,” she said again, unperturbed at his outburst. “And I can help you find it.”

“Why would you?”

“Because it’s time you remembered.”


	8. Dark Ficlet February Challenge: Vampire AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vampire tropes ahoy: blood, biting, violence, etc.

She has a type.

It is a type easy enough to spot.  She is never—has never been—so crude as to allow her preferences to be based on appearances.  She does not care about appearances.  

When one can no longer see one’s reflection, appearances take on less importance over time.

No.  No, perhaps that is not entirely accurate.  Amelle is entirely aware of appearances—entirely aware of her own appearance, in any case.  Diminutive stature.  Slight frame.  Curling dark hair framing a pair of wide green eyes.  She looks younger than she is.  

More to the point, she looks younger than she was the moment she stopped aging entirely.

The building is a known opium den; the fact its upper floors function as a brothel is, possibly, even more well known.  She is not so obvious as to loiter about the establishment—at least not in any overt way.  She blends in with the shadows so well, she is very nearly a part of them.  

It only serves to remind Fenris how very long she’s been this way.

A man comes out, his heavy, dark greatcoat buttoned up to his chin, his hat pulled low—appearances indicate he’s guarding himself against the bitter winter chill, but Fenris knows better.  It doesn’t matter how disreputable this part of the city is, no man—or woman, for that matter—wants to be recognized leaving such an establishment, particularly at such an hour.  The shadows are too long, too dark for respectable folk, such as himself.

Oh, but this gentleman—his dress identifies him as such, even if his… proclivities do not—does not hunch his shoulders against the gloom.  His stride is brisk, but businesslike.  His head is held high, defiant despite how low he wears his hat.  He turns down one street, then another, distancing himself from the stews, long-legged strides propelling him away from disrepute and onward towards the fashionable side of the street.  But his path is unerring; he knows his way there and back, and he travels the route like he owns it.

He does not fear shadows, this man; he fancies himself a predator.  

Amelle Hawke has a _type._

The drab rose dress does not push through the gloom, but her white shawl does, like a glowing lighthouse amid a storm. Both garments, Fenris knows, are careworn, mended countless times over.  Her booted feet click like dropping pebbles as she hurtles herself down the street.

He presses against the shadows concealing him, the better to see, to _hear._

“Help me, please, you have to help.”  Her accent is flawless, as is the desperate tear in her thin, high voice, her wide, terrified eyes, her face damp with tears.  Perfectly plucked notes in a sonata she knows by heart.  So to speak.

Silent, Fenris watches.  Follows.

The man, predictably, tries to shrug her off.  His wants are sated for the evening, after all, though the sweet, pungent smoke clings to him like a badly kept secret. 

But beneath that scent is another secret, darker and more closely kept.  

It is only when he turns, lifting his arm to strike this unmovable urchin grasping at his coattails so determinedly that he stops and sees.  Sees the diminutive stature.  The slight frame.  The wide, green eyes.

“Help me, please,” she says again.  “My brother—he’s taken a fall.  I can’t—he ain’t moving.  Please, please help me.”

A second ticks by.  Two.  Three.

“Fallen?” he finally asks, and there is no mistaking the slur in his voice.  “From where?”

“That rotten-arse Tom Turner bet Carver he couldn’t climb the drainpipe, and he ran like a rat when my brother fell,” she spat, pulling him along now by the sleeve of his coat.

Another pause.  Long enough for Fenris to note the way the man’s eyes linger at her shoulder where the shawl has slipped—where she has let it slip.  Then: “Show me.”

There is, predictably, the body of a young man at the end of the alleyway, face down with his arms and legs sprawled out, positioned near a dilapidated drainpipe.

Predictably, this is not the body her quarry is paying any attention to.  No more than three steps past the alleyway’s mouth, he wraps one hand around Amelle’s arm, swinging her abruptly to the right and pressing her against the pitted red brick building.

Her surprise sounds almost— _almost_ —genuine to his ears: a shocked gasp, a dismayed cry, but Fenris recognizes too well the way bubbling laughter wants to slip in along the outer edges of the sound.  To anyone else’s ears, it likely sounds like the tremor of approaching tears.  But Fenris isn’t anyone else.  And he knows better.

Those wide green eyes go even wider as she struggles in her prey’s grip.  This is very nearly enough to make Fenris laugh, for she plays her role flawlessly.  But then, he knows how easy it would be for her to crack this supposed gentleman’s head against the very wall he has her pinned against.  How quickly—how _gracefully_ —she could twist his head and break his neck.  The longer he thinks about this, the more he wants to be the one pressing her against the alley wall now.

But that is not how this game of theirs is played.

“But—but, my brother—you have to help my brother! He’s—”

The other gloved hand clamps deftly over her mouth, holding her still as well as silencing her.

“In a minute, pretty-pretty,” comes the man’s slurred murmurs over her muffled protests.  The scratch of tearing fabric follows.  “I think you need to help _me_ , first.”

The white shawl slides to the ground, pooling forlornly at Amelle’s feet.  She’s stopped struggling, and now the muted sounds coming from behind her prey’s hand sound like laughter more than anything else.  Such a change is enough to catch this gentleman by surprise, which is nothing compared to his surprise when Amelle’s slender, pale hand reaches up to grab the wrist attached to the hand covering her mouth, twisting it sharply enough to break every bone in the joint.

This time it is he who cries out, staggering back as he clutches his abused wrist to his chest, staring at the girl who looks nothing like a _girl_ right now.  Now her torn bodice reveals the swell of her breast.  Her face no longer looks innocently childlike, but rather vulpine, her smile curved in wicked amusement.  Her green eyes glint with something sharp and predatory and, yes, _amused._

“What the—what the bloody hell is the _matter_ with you?” And, oh, he may be a gentleman in name, but he is a coward at the core.  He wants to shout, Fenris can hear it, that strain in his voice—he wants to shout, but all that comes forth is a reed-thin, indignant whine of a whisper. 

He trips and stumbles backwards, prohibitively expensive shoes splashing through filthy puddles before he falls in a heap against the opposite wall.

Amelle affects a thoughtful expression, scratching her chin as she pretends to mull it over.  “Nothing whatsoever, come to think about it.”

“You _broke my wrist_ ,” the man snarls pathetically, all bluster and no substance.

“I did,” she admits with a cheerful grin.  “Which is nothing compared to what you were going to do to me, now, is it?”

Before he can reply, Amelle is upon him in a dusky pink blur, straddling his chest.  This time it is her hand closed over his mouth as she leans over him and says, in a hissing whisper thick with hundreds of years of blood, “Be careful of what you hunt.”

The game is up.  

Fenris strolls out from the cover of shadow, and at the soft scrape of his footsteps, Amelle turns her head just enough to acknowledge him, but never quite taking her eyes off her prey.

“Are we finished already?” she asks.

“You know the game’s rules, my own one,” he purrs, letting one hand rest at the back of her neck, fingers drifting through her curls.  She sighs and shivers beneath his touch.  “You had to get him to the _end_ of the alleyway.”  The man’s eyes slide to the side; from this angle he can see the body by the drainpipe, the young man’s open eyes, forever sightless, and the bloody bite marring the side of his neck.

Amelle tips her head back to look at Fenris and smiles adoringly, full-fanged in the moonlight.  It is easily the most beautiful sight he’s ever seen, and yet the pearl-white fangs gently denting her lush bottom lip makes Amelle’s prey struggle and thrash in terror, screaming hoarsely against her palm.  But it is only when he wets himself that Amelle’s face twists in disgust and she snaps his neck.  The alleyway is, once again, silent.

“Tearing my dress was one thing,” she complains, pushing to her feet and fingering the ripped seam.  “But _pissing himself_ is something else entirely.  _Ugh_.  Honestly.  _Humans._ ”

Chuckling, he takes her hand as she steps over the prone body, then pulls her close. Her gasp is gratifyingly genuine.  “It isn’t like you to waste a meal, my own.”

With a sigh, Amelle melds against Fenris, hooking an arm around his neck.  “Opium makes them taste funny,” she replies with a little pout.  “And it makes my lips go numb.”

He runs his thumb across the very lip he’d been admiring moments before.  “Oh, anything but that,” he replies, voice low, stroking her lip until she shivers, a delicious tremor that presses her even closer to him.

“What do you say,” she murmurs, pausing to lick the pad of his thumb, “to double or nothing?”

“Raising the stakes?”  He drags his thumb to her chin, then grasps it, tipping her head back and claiming her mouth in a kiss.  Her fangs scrape his lip and he shudders as her tongue glides against his, deftly avoiding his own too-sharp canines.

“You know I hate when you say it that way,” she breathes between kisses, groaning when her back hits the same pockmarked red brick, when Fenris’ leg slides between hers.

“Why else do you think I say it?” he growls against her neck, tongue darting out to taste her skin.

“Clearly,” she replies, hands sliding up into his coat to grip at his shoulders, “to vex me.  You  know, it occurs to me there was a time when it was I who found amusement in vexing you.”

He lowers his head further to her torn bodice, nuzzling the bared skin.  “And if you are very good,” he says, lips and teeth brushing her skin, “perhaps we will come round to that again someday.”

“Being good is _boring._ ”

Fenris could not agree more.


	9. Dark Ficlet February Challenge: Betrayal (in-game AU)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slight twist on this one--AU insofar as game events go. :)

He ignores the signs because he wants to, because the alternative is unthinkable, unimaginable.

When before they had made love at every available moment—in the middle of the day, lost in the velvet warmth and goosedown of Hawke’s bed; at dawn, watery grey light pushing through dirty windows and tattered drapes as they moved as one against his ancient mattress, mouths sealed, skin sliding against skin, where they lay entwined afterward, fingers drifting, searching, learning and memorizing each other’s bodies.  They have lain naked in a tangle of blankets before the library’s hearth.  One incredibly memorable evening, they braced themselves against the kitchen’s pantry door, Hawke’s legs around his waist, her arms around his neck.  

Fenris has seen Hawke naked beneath the silver shafts of broken moonlight that trickle through the holes in his roof.  He knows every inch of her body, from head to heel.  He knows the scar on her right thumb.  He knows the birthmark on her left hip.  The freckles across her shoulders.  The mole on her right thigh.

Fenris doesn’t know when it started, not really.  

Maybe when she rolled away from his questing fingers when morning dawned and gently pushed the darkness from her bedroom.  Maybe it was then.  He isn’t sure.

He does know that before long their intimacy keeps company with moonlight and shadows, doors closed and drapes drawn.

But what Hawke doesn’t seem to realize is that Fenris can see her just as well in the dark as in daylight.  What she doesn’t seem to realize is that Fenris is as intimately acquainted with scars as he is with her body.  And when his fingers find the scabbed-over line along the inside of her arm, he knows at once what it is.

What he doesn’t know is why she didn’t heal it.

After the scabbed over line thickens to scar tissue, another such line appears on her other arm.

Another.

Another.

She stops healing them.  Or perhaps she can no longer heal at all.

They stop making love.  They fuck in the dark, hard and fast and empty.  She rolls away when they’re done; soon, Fenris stops reaching for her altogether.  Soon he stops touching her completely.  The insides of her arms are riddled with scars and raised scabs.  Her palms are streaked with angry lines.

Red mists bloom from Hawke’s hands in battle as she strikes her enemies down, one after another after another.  She is more powerful than she has ever been.  

But the warmth has long since leeched from her eyes.  They’re now cold as a knife’s blade and twice as sharp.

And she can cut him with a glance.


	10. Dark Ficlet February Challenge: Restraint (set post-From the Ashes)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DFF Challenge: Bondage / rope play / restraints used during sex.
> 
> This one is most definitely NSFW. I wouldn't consider it "dark," but it absolutely involves sexual relations between two consensual adults.

“ _Amelle_.”Her name comes out far less dignified than Fenris means it to be, more of a yelp than anything else, but her fingers are trailing up his ribs, and she is smiling at him as she grazes the lightest possible path upward, fingertips and short nails following the pale lines twining across his skin.

“What?” she asks, all innocence but in her eyes, where mischief glints.And, oh, he knows her brand of mischief well.“I thought you weren’t ticklish, Fenris.Thought you said it was just my healing spells that tickled, hmm?”

“I am not,” he says, grinding out the lie through his teeth and making a grab for her wrists.But his wife is too quick for him, and she sends her hands down again, the flats of her nails sliding against his skin.  

“I think you’re lying,” she murmurs, dipping her head to kiss the side of his neck, renewing her attack upon his ribs.This time, though, his attempt is successful and his fingers wrap around her slender wrists, pulling them away from their target.

“That is quite an accusation,” he replies in kind, holding her wrists wide and this time dipping his head to nuzzle the side of her neck.Amelle tips her head back with a sigh as Fenris drags the tip of his tongue up along her pulsepoint before finding her mouth and kissing her hard.She opens her mouth to him, mewling into the kiss, her groan of pleasure turning swiftly to a gasp as he presses her back against the pillows.

Amelle pulls at his grip, then—this is somewhere they have found themselves dozens of times, and dozens of times Fenris has let go of his wife’s hands, at which point they both devote themselves to the use of their hands in the pursuit of pleasure.

Fenris does not quite know why—he cannot articulate the inclination—but rather than letting go, he holds Amelle’s wrists a little tighter, guiding them slowly above her head.And though—though there is _something_ in Fenris, some far-off voice urging him to stop, to acquiesce, to roll back and pull Amelle on top of him, there is something else, a different pull, urging him to stay right where he is.

If Amelle is aware of the conflict, she shows no sign of it.On the contrary, with the increased pressure around her wrists, her moan turns low and guttural, her hips arching and pressing up against him.By the time he breaks the kiss, she’s flushed and panting.He lifts his brows in a silent question. She smiles, eyes glancing up to where his hands still hold her fast; when Amelle looks back at him, her smile grows a fraction wider and she gives him the briefest of nods.

That settles it.

Transferring both hands to one wrist, he reaches between them and pulls the belt of her dressing gown free.Self-consciousness pounds in his head with uncertainty providing a damning counter-rhythm.

_What are you doing?_

_This is not your place._

_You dare?_

But as he pushes to his knees and winds the sash around Amelle’s wrists, as a flush blooms at her breasts and creeps up to her face, as her breathing turns ragged and her body moves more needily beneath him, that rhythm fades and changes to another.

_This is what I am doing._

_It is my place._

_I do dare._

Once Amelle’s hands are bound and secured to the headboard, Fenris sits back on his heels, heart pounding, and looks at his wife.She’s watching him, eyes dark, as she licks her lips and shifts—

It’s then Fenris sees, as the dressing gown falls open and silk passes over her skin, how flushed her breasts are, how taut her nipples.Amelle arches her hips again, her body asking a silent question he is all too ready to answer.

 _Wait,_ he thinks, thinks past the blood pounding in his veins, getting him hard—harder. _Wait._

Bracing himself against the mattress, he leans down and presses a kiss to the hollow of Amelle’s throat; when she arches her back to press her breasts to his chest, he moves away.He drops a line of chaste kisses from her throat to her navel, never quite going where he knows she wants him to go.

By the time he’s brushing his lips across Amelle’s hip, she’s moving against the bed, tiny frustrated sounds erupting from her throat.Fenris follows the same path back up to her neck, then brings his mouth to her ear.

“Something the matter?”

Her laugh is breathless, trembling with want.“I think you know the answer to that,” she manages.

He grins, pressing his hips down hard against hers.Amelle closes her eyes and presses her head back into the pillows, groaning.“Yes, _that._ ”

“In good time, I think.”

“You _think?_ ”

He chuckles, low and throaty, and Amelle’s reply is to bite down on her bottom lip and arch her hips, but he moves away at the last.“Maker’s breath, Fenris,” she hisses.

“Hmm?”He settles on his knees, pinning Amelle’s hips.

“Kiss me,” she gasps.

He leans close—close enough to acquiesce—and murmurs so softly against that lush mouth:

“Say please.”

A shudder moves through her, a tiny strangled whimper tearing free from her throat.She licks her lips again and replies in kind, “Please.”A pause.A breath.“Kiss me.”

#

When the kiss comes, it’s enough to steal Amelle’s breath away.Fenris’ mouth closes over hers, and there is no hesitation, no preamble, nothing but _him,_ his mouth, his lips, his teeth, and his tongue—Maker’s _breath,_ his tongue.She wants him, wants everything he has to give her—she also wants it all at once, but she’s starting to get the feeling that isn’t how this is going to go.At least three times now she’s made a move to wrap her arms around him, to pull him close, urge him on—and three times she’s reminded that’s not an option on the table right now.

And yet, she hasn’t got a problem with that.

When he pulls away, Amelle can’t quite smother her disappointed sigh, but when she catches sight of just how damned pleased with himself Fenris looks, disappointment flares into renewed want—lust, love, passion, _whatever_ you call it, it’s making her skin rise in gooseflesh and heat throb in her belly.

“What next?” he asks, and though his tone strives for disinterest, Amelle knows that look in his eyes, recognizes that smirk kicking up at the corner of his mouth, the hint of color barely evident beneath his tanned skin.But she knows it’s there.

“What next?” she echoes, blinking.

Fenris shrugs, tilting his head.“Tell me what you want.”

Amelle’s flush is sudden and hot.She’s sure it’s not going to be much longer before she manifests actual flames.“Tell you… what I…”

“What you want.”He drags the backs of his fingers across the sensitive underside of one breast, and over her gasp he says, “I know you well enough that I am certain you know exactly what you want, Amelle Hawke.”

“Well.Yes.”She stops, swallows.“Saying it out loud’s something else entirely.”

“If you’d like time to think about it—“

“Wait a—“

“I could leave you right where you are—“

“—minute here.Wait, _what?_ ”

“—so you might have ample time to decide.”

She knows he’s bluffing.Thinks he’s bluffing. _Is pretty sure_ he’s bluffing.Besides, there’s nothing stopping her from burning the sash from her dressing gown and letting herself loose, other than the fact that she’s rather fond of the robe and doesn’t particularly want to explain to Tasia how any part of it got burnt to cinders.

Or… she could just… tell him.

More heat rushes to her face, but it is secondary to the heat pulsing everywhere else.

So she tells him.Over and over she breathes the words, sending him across every inch of her skin; his lips find her nipples, his tongue and teeth teasing the pebbled flesh until she’s writhing under him.She sends him between her legs, but inaccuracy in her own directions place his mouth there instead of his cock and as he licks deeper and deeper, Amelle groans his name, pulling at her restraints as harmless flares of healing magic spark from her fingertips.His lips brush her clit and Amelle’s resultant cry is so sharp it bounces off the walls and high ceiling of their chamber—she can’t remember if the windows are open or not and decides _she doesn’t give a damn._

And for as much as Amelle is sure Fenris is trying to keep perfect control over himself, she can see the way he’s fraying at the edges, can feel how close he’s coming to unraveling completely—and she realizes, she realizes _then_ that she could keep him away from where he most wants to be, where he most wants to wind up.

She could.

But she isn’t going to.

Blood pounds in her veins, the whole of her body trembling on the precipice, so close—so _very close_ to coming, but she wants him, wants him inside of her, wants him _there_ when she comes.  

She knows what she wants, and knows there is no plainer way she can say it.

“Fuck me,” she whispers through gritted teeth, and even that cannot conceal the desperate tear in her voice.“Maker’s breath, Fenris, please— _please_ , _fuck me_.”

And then he’s there _,_ _finally, he’s there,_ and she’s not just close anymore; her body reacts, and again she reaches for him, and again she can’t, and it only heightens her own reaction, lifting her hips against him as he rocks into her. And then she’s coming, and it’s been such a long road, but she’s finally _there—_ fingers twisting into the sash binding her wrists, wave after wave after _wave_ throbbing through her as her body clenches around him, his name and _yes_ tearing past her lips, over and over again, until he kisses her again, swallowing her cries, still moving against her, inside her, moving, moving until the whole of his body shudders.

The room is silent, but for their labored breaths, and with one trembling hand, Fenris reaches up and releases the simple knot.

“Promise me something,” Amelle breathes tremulously.

“Anything.”  

Amelle swallows against her dry throat.“That won’t be the last time you try that.”

Fenris turns his head, pressing a kiss to her shoulder.“You have my word.”

 


	11. Grief (In-game AU)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DFF Challenge: Death fic/grief 
> 
> I chose grief.

The night he leaves her, green eyes wide and uncomprehending in the firelight, he doesn’t know.  He doesn’t know what will happen, or what won’t.  He cannot think past his own pain, the ache of memory dangled like a carrot before a beaten, beleaguered donkey, cruelly snatched away at the last.  He flees for the comparable safety of the mansion—there he is safe—safe from Hawke.  From her kindness, which he knows he doesn’t deserve.

He vows to himself he will not see her again.  He will distance himself from her.  Better for her, and infinitely better for him— _better_ in that it is a punishment, and one he wholly deserves.

And then he sees her.  For the first time since— _since_ , he sees her.

Her hair is longer.  Longer than it ever has been, her fringe reaching down in one long, lazy curl to barely brush her nose.  The effect leaves her looking strangely unkempt, but it appears not to bother her.

It bothers him.

A month passes.  Two.  Three.  He will not see her again.  He swears it to himself.  He will _not._

But Fenris is weak.

He finds her again, her hair curling gently about her chin.  Strange, how much it alters her features.  Her narrow, angular face with its pointed chin and long nose are hidden, made softer, and yet _stranger_ by the addition.  

He cannot imagine she likes it.  Summer is nigh upon them and he has never known Hawke to manage a Kirkwall summer without taking the shears to her head, complaining bitterly about the heat.

Every day that passes afterward is a trial.  He knows he must stay away, knows it is better for all that he does.  But with every day that passes, words settle in his head like snowfall—words he ought to have said but didn’t, words he has no right to say.  Words.  He is tempted to write them down—to try, in any case, in the stilted, clumsy letters she taught him a lifetime ago.  He can read well enough; writing is still another matter.

Six months before he sees her again.  Her hair is past her shoulders now, long enough that it reflects the light.  Loose curls of burnished bronze move with the wind, blow about her head until they tangle in the salt air that permeates all of Kirkwall.

He has no right to speak to her now.  If there was ever an ember of affection between them, it is no longer.

Oh, but he wants to.  He wants to— _needs to_ —hear her voice, hear her say his name.

He has no right to such a luxury, though, and he knows it.

Six more months pass.  It is summer again and those curls hang heavily upon her head, damp at her brow.  There is no wind today and her cheeks are flushed with heat.  It reminds him of another night so long ago it is barely worth mentioning—the touch of color upon her face, the rosy pink of her kiss-swollen lips, the sheen of exertion upon her brow.

He wants to hear her say his name.  He needs it.  One word.  After that, he will leave her—he swears it to himself.

He finds her easily enough—she is easily found, after all.  With every step he draws nearer, his heart threatens to beat out of his chest.  His hands shake.  His stomach roils.

He has no right to ask anything of her.  Better to let their night together rest in the past—in _peace._

He cannot.

“Hawke,” he says, her name like lead on his tongue, like salt in his throat.

She turns, as he knows she would.  “Fenris.”

Her voice.  His name.  He closes his eyes as the memory of her lips brushing his earlobe wash over him, the warmth of her breath as she whispered his name as if it were a reverent thing, as if—

A gust of hot summer wind blows through the Gallows, catching the length of Hawke’s hair, the loose tangle of curls, sending it first to one side, and then back—

Back, away from her face, away from the sun, now forever etched upon her forehead.


	12. Dark Ficlet February Challenge: Mirror (Tevinter AU)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DFF Challenge: Mirrors (Dopplegangers; mirror-versions of a character/ _setting_ where everything is its opposite)
> 
> Warning: this ficlet contains themes of slavery and implied violence.

Minrathous’ sun is bright.  Ruthlessly bright.  The white glare of it sends her pupils to pinpoints, contracting so painfully she winces, her hand coming up in an aborted movement to shade her eyes from the assault.

But her chains are not long enough.  Her hands stop with a jerk and the clink of metal, and instead she ducks her head against the glare.  The measure is ineffective, but will have to suffice for now.

A rough hand grabs her shoulder, shoves her forward, out of the scant shade and further into the sunlight, the grip and push both so hard she nearly stumbles— _nearly_ , but doesn’t.  A good thing, too; the linen shift is indecently thin and would tear—has already—at the slightest provocation.  Which, Amelle knows, is completely the point.

This is the worst part.  It’s always the worst part.  

Never knowing what will happen if you’re sold, but always knowing what will happen if you’re not.

_Eyes on the ground.  Eyes on the ground.  Look harmless.  Look meek.  They like us meek._

Tall bodies with long limbs—so _graceful._   So _appealing._   Blunted ears such a _novelty._

Amelle has heard it all.

The barker and auctioneer calls out above the market’s din, above the low rumble of prospective buyers deciding what they’ll bid, above the happy calls of playing children, above other merchants shouting praises for their wares.

“Lot forty-two!” he yells.  “Human female mage healer, previously the property of the one and only Laetarus, our very own celebrity and current favorite on the tournament circuit.”  The sharp sting of a crop beneath her chin forces her to look up, standing straight, hands still, shoulders back.

She does not think about how many touches of the whip it’s taken to condition such a reaction.  Too many.

Their eyes are on her.  Browsers, gawkers, prospective buyers.  The market attracts all kinds.

“Turn around, shem,” the auctioneer says, low and cold.  Amelle complies before the crop snaps out again.  “Sent to auction because the champion requires a stronger healer.  This mage’s abilities did not suit.  Also possesses elemental magic with strong proclivities toward fire and ice.  Would also make an excellent kitchen slave.”

A woman’s voice rises up from the throng.  “What kind of healer?”

The auctioneer smiles a wolf’s smile.  “Spirit healer, but too weak for such a celebrated fighter.”

The voice’s owner, a fair-skinned elf with a knot of fiery red hair steps forward.  Shrewd green eyes look Amelle up and down, narrowing on the cuffs around her wrists.  Thick, stamped with runes that kept her mana silent and absent.  Thicker than the norm.

_Look meek.  Look harmless._

The woman narrows her eyes, arching a brow at the auctioneer.  “Are you honestly trying to say Laetarus had no use for a _spirit healer?_ ”

The seller’s smile turns thin and cold.  “I’m sure I don’t know the particulars.  Perhaps he grew bored with her other talents.  I can only tell you what my client told me.”

The woman’s nostrils flare.  “Begin the bidding.”  

#

Varania.  Her new mistress’ name is Varania.

“Tell me how you served Laetarus.”

The question catches Amelle entirely off-guard.  She had been sitting perfectly still in the carriage, listening to the rhythmic _clop clop_ of horse hooves against the stones, had nearly been lulled to sleep by the soft seat beneath her backside and the gentle sway of the carriage.  She swallows hard and licks her lips.

“Healing, mistress.  After a tournament.”

“And the rest?”

Shame turns her face hot.  She closes her eyes and forces the words past her lips, shrouded in a thick veil of passivity and neutrality.  It doesn’t matter she that wants to throw up.

“I…”  The words stick like mud in her throat.  “Obeyed his orders, mistress.”

Varania’s eyes narrow.  “I see.”

 _No you don’t,_ she wants to say.  _You don’t see at all.  If you see, it’s what you want to see, and I will not do it—I will not do it again._

“There will be no such _orders_ in my household,” she says, evenly.  “That said, you will primarily serve my brother.  Like Laetarus he… is fond of the tourneys.  Leto and Laetarus have met… several times.”

Her lips part with a question before she realizes she’s not been given leave to speak.  But Varania catches something in her expression and inclines her head.  “Go on.”

“I… do not know that name.  Leto.”  Indeed, she has seen every one of Laetarus’ fights and knows the names of all of his rivals.

“He prefers to fight under a different name,” she replies, lips twisting into a wry smile.  “Fenris.”

 _That_ name she knows.  Her eyes widen and is startled by the swiftness with which Varania reads her expression.  “Why would a man with such a good family name fight in the tourneys?” she asks with a smile, even as she indicates the carriage’s plush interior and her own very fine gown.  The smile turns wry.  “He likes the attention.  I would rather you not give it to him.”

That is an order she is happy to obey.

The estate sprawls out over acres and acres, an expanse of white marble streaked gently with grey.  There are balconies and porticos and covered walkways stretching out to other wings of the house.  It is far larger than any house she has set foot in—even Laetarus’—and its furnishings fine beyond description.  The gleaming wood furniture begs to be touched, though not by her hand.  The tapestries glow with color.  There are bright silk pillows upon fat velvet cushions.  Thick rugs bursting with gold and green silence her already soft footfalls as she follows Varania to the slaves’ quarters.

“There are clothes laid out for you,” she tells Amelle, turning and giving her another look from top to toe.  “I’ll speak to someone about a bath,” she adds, leaving Amelle to wonder if there’s still straw in her hair.  But the moment passes and Varania is walking again, quick brisk steps.  When they pass another slave, she acknowledges them, but coolly, with the air of someone fully accustomed to being obeyed.

“Your duties are simple,” she goes on.  “Heal whatever damage my brother incurs in the arena and in his training.  Other than that, any instruction coming from him is as if it has come from me.”

“Yes, mistress.”

She stops at a narrow door, constructed of pale, knotty wood, hand resting on the latch.  “I confess I do not know if such things matter to you, but Laetarus has no love for Leto, and the reverse is twice as true.  He will dislike you are serving this family.”

It is the first reason she has been given to serve them well.

#

The first meeting between Amelle and her new master… does not go well.

First, he is late to dinner; his tardiness evidently annoys but does not surprise Varania.

“Return to your quarters,” she tells Amelle on a sigh.  “I will send for you once he’s arrived.”

But as Amelle is turning to leave the vast dining room, the man in question arrives, sauntering in on a cloud of women’s perfume, looking both tousled and incredibly self-satisfied.

Amelle knows of Leto.  Knows him better as Fenris, but she does know of him.  She’d already more than suspected what Varania had told her regarding Laetarus’ dislike for the man.  But she had only ever seen him at a distance, across the width of the arena, watching through the bars of the cell Laetarus preferred to lock her in when he didn’t require her services.

Leto is much, much different up close.  His hair is dark, darker than onyx as it rests against his tanned brow.  His skin is bronzed, likely by the sun, if his sister’s fair complexion is anything to go by.  His eyes, though—they are identical in color to his sister’s.  But where Varania’s eyes are cool and assessing, Leto’s spark and flare with none of his sister’s restraint.  She has heard the stories, but now, looking at him so close, Amelle has no doubt her new master has a temper.  He is also handsome—of that there is no doubt.  Laetarus always beat her a little more severely after losing a match to Leto, when the arena shook to its very foundation with the force of adoring female screams.

Leto stops in the dining hall and stares at her, nostrils flaring in distaste.  “Who are you?” he asks, bluntly—so bluntly, and with a hint of accusation, Amelle’s tongue stumbles over the answer.

“Your new healer,” Varania replies with barely banked annoyance.  “Now go and wash.  You stink like a brothel.”

Leto… does not appear to be chagrined by this insult.  Instead, a tiny smirk kicks up at the corner of his mouth as he slants a slyer look Amelle’s way.

“Perhaps my new healer should… accompany me.  There may be scratches upon my person I need healed.”

“Leto.”  The word passes from Varania’s lips so low, so cold, her tone alone is enough to make Amelle shiver.

But Leto is untroubled by his sister’s tone.  “Too short, anyway,” he says, dismissively.  “If you were going to buy me a human, you ought to have picked a taller one.”

“Go,” Varania says, turning hard eyes on her brother.  “The scent on you is giving me a headache and ruining the lamb.”

“Very well,” he replies on a long, drawn-out sigh.  Then he turns and sends another look Amelle’s way.  “You, stay.  I have questions for you once I’ve returned.”

And, as he has commanded, she remains, standing as still as any statue in the corner.  She is used to standing, used to waiting.  Her muscles don’t cramp like they used to, until sweat poured down her back.  She has gotten better at being still.

When Leto finally returns, he is dressed in loose, dark clothing, richly constructed.  His damp hair falls in wet segments against his forehead.  He still smells—though more faintly—of women’s perfume.

With scarcely a look Amelle’s way, her master throws himself into one of the dining room chairs and begins tearing into the meal that has doubtless gone cold waiting for him.  Strange, that.  Nobody has offered to re-warm his food.  Amelle’s gaze slides to Varania, but she’s eating her dinner calmly, as if nothing is strange or amiss here.

“I know your face,” he says, scarcely acknowledging her.  “It took me a moment, but I do know it.”  He twists in his chair to look at his sister.  “And the first thing I want to know,” Leto says between mouthfuls of food, “is why you thought to buy me my rival’s castoffs, sister.”

“You need a healer,” Varania replies with infinite patience.

“Had I known the only available option would be Laetarus’ seconds, I’d have told you not to bother.”

“But bother I did, and you now have a healer.  And don’t think for a moment spirit healers are a copper a dozen.”

“Well, there’s clearly something wrong with her, else he’d not have had her sold from his house.”

Her reply—her _defense_ —sizzles on her tongue, but she swallows it, keeps her breathing slow and even, keeps her fingers unclenched.

“Healer,” he says, turning his head barely more than a fraction to acknowledge Amelle.  “Why did your former master have you removed from his household?”

Amelle considers what version of the truth might be closest to the actual truth.  “He no longer had use for me.”  Before Leto can ask a second question, she adds, “My replacement is taller than I.”

Leto blinks, as if searching her words for insolence, while Varania stares down at her plate, lips twitching with silent laughter.  

He does not comment on her height again.


	13. Prelude to a Protagonist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a gift-ficlet, written for the lovely Tarysande, who won Laudanum & Lyrium's first anniversary giveaway. (There are two more winners and two more ficlets coming, after I've finished the next chapter!)
> 
> Tary wanted to know how Varric and Isabela met Amelle, and since this is actually a scenario I have been wanting to write for a while now, I was really excited to get this prompt.

_Some stories have profound beginnings; deals forged in blood—that’s always a good one.Something strong, a hook, that pulls you in and gets you thirsty for more.This one, though?Hats._

_Yeah, I know.There’s something… lacking there, and just between you, me, and the wallpaper, when I retell this story later—and you can be damned sure I will—I’ll probably leave out the hats.I might catch hell for it later, but that’s what bridges are for—crossing (or burning) when you come to them._

_Anyway, we were heading through Denerim.I had another installment of my serial,_ The Bard and the Blade _to deliver, and a check from my publisher to claim.From there, the plan was the same as it always was after I’d finished a chapter and was flush with cash—Rivaini and I would find a card game and before the night was through would triple what the publishers had given me, which we’d then split and… invest in other ways._

_Things would’ve worked out a lot differently had Rivaini not insisted on stopping at a particular shop that employed a particular seamstress and milliner.She’s damned persuasive when she sets her mind to it, too—I learned that lesson a long time ago.There’re three arguments you never want to have with Isabela: cards, daggers, and shopping.You’ll never win.Well, you won’t.I win sometimes—but then, dwarves have haggling in their blood._

_But I digress—Denerim.That’s where it all started._

###

He was probably just predisposed to liking bigger cities.They were… civilized in a way other places weren’t.You never had to work too hard or search too long to find just what it was you were looking for.They excelled at convenience and comfortable beds in equal parts.  

“I could make a killing if I stayed here,” he mused aloud.

From beside him, Isabela snorted.“You’d be bored stupid within a month.”

She wasn’t wrong, not that he was going to admit it.  Varric shrugged.“Make it six.”

“Two,” she countered, her easy saunter slowing as they passed a shop window, an array of domestic and exotic blades on display.Varric followed her gaze—it was probably the bone-handled number she was eyeing.Hell of a blade on that one, long and curved and sharp enough to split a hair on a rat’s ass.Nevarran, if he guessed right.Probably decent quality, but likely sold for roughly three times what it was worth.  

That was another problem with big cities—fewer shopkeepers willing to negotiate. 

“ _Three,_ ” he said, his tone pointed enough that it pulled Isabela’s gaze—a particularly lustful gaze, as it happened—away from the daggers.

She shook her head, hair swaying with the movement.“Six weeks.”

“How do you figure?”

She flashed a smile at him, sunlight catching the stud below her lip and the gold at her throat.“Because you wouldn’t have me.”

Barking a laugh, Varric shook his head as they resumed their leisurely pace.It so happened Isabela wasn’t entirely mistaken, but damned if he was going to give her that sort of satisfaction without even working for it.“You think pretty highly of yourself, Rivaini.”

“You’re the professional bullshitter here, Varric.If either of us is going to exaggerate, it’s not going to be me.”

“I may be a professional,” he countered, “but it’ll be a cold day in the Deep Roads before I ever agree you’re less of a bullshitter than I am.”

She smirked and let out a smoky chuckle.“It was worth a try, wouldn’t you say?”

“I tend to say lots of things are worth a try.”Their wavering reflections glided by from one window to another to another, until the line of shops ended, opening up to the town square, the post and telegraph office beyond that, leading to a cross-street, which they took.“Sometimes twice.”

Along a narrow little road, Isabela’s favorite hat and dress shop sat nestled just before an ironmonger and just after a feed store, with the blacksmith’s forge at the end of the lane.Not the sort of place anyone expected to look for a boutique featuring the height of Orlesian fashion, and yet there it was, a haven of frills and feathers plunked down between alfalfa seed and iron nails.

The place struck Varric as completely unassuming, very _unlike_ the proprietor’s favorite customer.Isabela’s stride slowed, at which point Varric wholly expected her to cross the street (more accurately, dart across the street without him) and vanish within for the better part of an hour.  

Or more.  

It was usually more.

But Isabela didn’t just slow down; instead, she came to a complete stop, head tilted and brow furrowed.“Now that’s something you don’t see every day.”

A comment about Denerim’s speciality being _things you didn’t see every day_ sat poised on Varric’s tongue, until he turned and saw exactly what Isabela was talking about.

There, positioned in tiny niche between the dress shop and the ironmonger, a young woman, with a little more emphasis on the _young_ than the _woman_ —probably eighteen or nineteen if a day—stood upon a heavy wooden crate, calling out to passers-by, small bottles of glinting liquid in either hand.Another crate, this one open and filled with similarly glinting bottles sat nearby.

The problem wasn’t so much what she was, or what she had, it was what she _wasn’t_ —what she was lacking.There was no signage anywhere, no banners, no stamps upon her crates or labels on her bottles, not even a proper podium.If not for the bottles she held, she could have been a stalwart chantry type proselytizing to passers-by, especially wearing that sort of getup.  Her lips moved as she called out to people, but her voice didn’t carry.A couple of people slowed, and one or two stopped a moment, but they moved on—she didn’t have a voice, and she didn’t have a hook.

Isabela let out a huff, crossing her arms and jutting out one hip as she leaned against a lamppost to watch man, woman, and child alike ignore the young entrepreneur.“Who in all the Void would be stupid enough to try peddling anything on a tiny little street like this one?”She frowned.“And what do you suppose it is she’s selling, anyway?”

“Hard to say,” he replied with a shrug, squinting at the girl.From his right, Isabela heaved a mighty sigh; Varric shot her a dark look and reached into an inside pocket, then perched the pince-nez on his nose.Everything snapped into focus, which helped not at all—if anything, actually _seeing_ made the tableau just a little more pathetic.Now the girl’s expression came through all too clearly, teetering between desperate and miserable as she beseeched to uninterested customers who, one after another after another simply walked on past.  

 _Speak up, kid,_ he thought at the girl, almost surprised at the sudden flash of irritation surging in his chest _._ Denerim was no place for amateurs—she’d be better off starting small.Somewhere like Redcliffe, even.Start somewhere small, throw up some signs, slap some labels on those bottles, and shout until someone stopped to listen.The merchant life was in Varrics blood, much as he hated it, but it meant he knew the facts like they were part of him, etched on his bones and burned into his brain—to get people to buy, you had to get them to stop, and to get them to stop, you had to grab their curiosity, their interest. _They’ll never buy if you can’t get ‘em to listen, and they’ll never listen if you don’t make them hear you.You’ll never reel them in if you’re trying to fish without bait._

“Nope, can’t tell,” he said on a sigh.“Crates and bottles are both definitely bare—not a sign, not a placard anywhere.Looks like the kid knows about as much about salesmanship as she does about showmanship.”

“Naturally,” Isabela agreed, nodding at the demure cut of the young woman’s dress, a tea-rose print with a lace collar beneath a straw bonnet tied off with a pink ribbon.“Though she’s trying, the poor thing.In her chantry best and all.Which is part of the problem, I suspect.She can’t hope to grab anyone’s attention looking like she might pass for a chantry sister.”

Varric arched a skeptical eyebrow and sent Isabela a long, disbelieving look.“ _Poor thing?_ ”That was the sort of sentiment she usually expressed after finding only one of a twin set of daggers.Or a kitten.

“What?” Isabela returned a trifle defensively, folding her arms.“She’s obviously trying.Granted,” she added in an undertone, “she’s trying _badly_ , but she’s trying.”At Varric’s chuckle, Isabela’s eyebrows shot together in a scowl.“What?” she asked again.

“And so it was,” he said, deepening his voice and hooking his thumbs in his belt, “the tough-as-railroad-spikes Rivaini saw in the innocent lass an echo of her younger, greener self, and found her heart softening.”

“Watch it,” she growled, a scowl darkening her features.“I know where you sleep, Fuzzy.”

She had a point there.  More accurately, she had several points, two of which she wore upon her back.  

“It occurs to me I don’t exactly see you denying it.”When Isabela didn’t reply beyond an even narrower glower than before, Varric chuckled again, tucking the pince-nez away.“All right, all right,” he relented mildly.“Glare any harder at me and something important might wither.”

The glare melted a few degrees.“And that _would_ be a shame.”

“You’re telling me.”Varric cast another look at the would-be saleswoman.He had to give her credit—if she’d come straight to Denerim from wherever she started, she had nerve.Not a whole lot in the way of brains, but plenty of nerve.Determination, too.

Nerve and determination.It was a good combination.

“You’re thinking,” murmured Isabela, bumping Varric once with her hip, jostling him.

“I’m thinking nobody sells anything in this day and age without selling themselves first.I can’t hear a damned thing she’s saying, never mind whether or not what she’s saying’s any good.The kid’s a travesty.An insult to traveling merchants everywhere.”

Oh, but that wasn’t what he was thinking.And Isabela was right—he was thinking.The longer they stood there, in fact, the faster his thoughts came together.

“ _Insult_ seems a bit harsh.Though she clearly doesn’t know what she’s doing,” Isabela agreed, nodding slowly.“Show a little skin, too—or at least not dress like she’s on her way to evening chant.”

“What she _needs_ ,” he said, “is to make herself stand out.She needs to get them to stop.No way to tell what she’s saying, no way to tell what she’s selling—and weren’t you on your way to ogle and covet hats?”

“Mmmm.”

“I don’t know if I like the particularly thoughtful quality of that hum, Rivaini.”

But, even more worryingly, Isabela didn’t reply; she instead looked intently at the young woman, watching her in a manner she seldom employed when a deck of cards or an unpickable lock wasn’t involved.  

They’d seen men and women alike—dozens, at least—in their travels, who’d peddled some kind of cure-all, and Rivaini hadn’t given them a second glance.More often than not she was the one dragging him away, since Varric tended to hang around for no reason other than to critique their patter.His eyes flicked between Rivaini and the girl, trying to puzzle out what it was _she_ saw that had her so… attentive.He knew what he was thinking—and he knew it was an idiotic venture—but Isabela was looking at the girl like…

Like Rose was a lock to be picked.Like there was _something_ about her, hidden just below the surface.

Wouldn’t be the first time their thoughts traveled in the same direction.

A sudden, sharp whistle cut through the air, loud enough to startle Rose such that the crate beneath her gave a shivery little wobble.She went suddenly pale and alarmingly still, arms falling to her sides like those of a puppet whose strings had been unexpectedly snipped.A trio of men in dust-streaked riding gear had come out of the Gnawed Noble and were ambling their way down the little street.One stumbled.

Narrowing her eyes at them, Isabela asked in an undertone, “Didn’t we beat them at cards last night?”

Not wanting to dig again for his spectacles, Varric squinted.“Indeed we did.”The threesome had been significantly less dusty the night before, but after incurring such… _remarkable_ losses, it wasn’t much of a surprise they were a little rougher around the edges today.“Something tells me we could probably beat them at cards for the foreseeable future if we wanted.Tiddlywinks, too.”

“Hey pretty-pretty,” called one of the men, tall and whip-thin, a stained and battered bowler doing little to hide the greasy hair that hung in lank curls down the back of his neck.He leaned against the crate the woman was stood on, causing it to lean and creak.“You got any love potions in there?Anythin’ for—” he leered and made a show of grabbing the hem of her dress, as if to peek under it, “virl-tea?”

“It’s _virility,_ you jackass,” one of his companions said, a shorter, stouter man with a weasely face and dark sweat stains further marring the armpits of his filthy grey shirt.“Bet she’s got some of ‘em, though.”He began pawing through the open crate, carelessly sending straw and bottles spilling onto the street.The tinkling of glass followed as one vial and then another tumbled free.

"Hey!" the girl shouted, cheeks going furiously pink.

So it seemed Rose did have a voice; she just didn't know how to put it to proper use.

“ _I_ think we’re entitled to some free samples,” insisted the third, a grimy redhead who approached the other side of Rose’s rickety makeshift platform, every bit as greasy and dingy as his brothers in drunken arms.“Maybe a… _personal demonstration._ ”

Rose hadn’t gathered much of a crowd, but the few onlookers she’d attracted all looked away, their faces reflecting varying degrees of discomfiture as they slinked off in different directions, disappearing into shops and vanishing into the sunlit square, embarrassed to have been caught listening to the girl, examining her wares—and unwilling to be thrust into a confrontation.The only thing more unsurprising than the fact it had happened at all was how very unsurprised Varric was to see it.  

From beside him, Isabela heaved a disgusted sigh.He couldn’t blame her.They’d never been the types to shy away from confrontation.There were days he suspected Isabela went looking for it. 

Surreptitiously, Varric curled his fingers around the leather strap across his chest, nonchalantly easing Bianca forward, _just in case—_

Isabela let out a low groan.“Oh, _balls_.Why do I have the most awful feeling we’re going to do something I’m going to regret and complain about for at least the next hour?” 

 _You’re lying, Rivaini_ , he thought with a kick of unexpected amusement, even as he looked up at her and said, “It’s not too late for you to make a beeline for your hats.”

“Yes, it damned well is,” she grumbled, reaching one hand to the daggers she kept sheathed against her back.

What happened next, though, if not the last thing Varric Tethras expected to see, was certainly within the top five.As Greasy gave her crate another push, Rose jumped down and began backing away, which was, all things considered, very much the sane and reasonable thing to do.But then Weasel darted around to her side, making a grab for her arm—and from beside Varric came the whisper of Isabela’s daggers coming out of their sheaths—

But then an unexpected—to say nothing of _impossible_ —fizzing crackle of white light followed, jutting out in threads from Rose’s hand.The flash lasted no more than a second, but a second had been more than enough time for Weasel to stumble backwards and fall to the ground, clutching his hands to his chest, as he squalled like a newborn babe.

“You—how in the fuck did you—you _burned_ me, you _bitch!”_

“I most certainly did _not!_ ” she returned, eyes wide, hands clenched by her sides, glancing furtively from Weasel to Greasy to Grimy and back again.

As plot twists went, this one was a doozy.

Varric took a closer, a harder look at Rose in her demure dress, with her straw bonnet and pink ribbons.Her trembling hands made sense—a whole lot of sense, in fact—but the sharp, determined line of her jaw—now _that_ was something he hadn’t expected to see.This flower had some thorns, it seemed.  

Magical thorns that shot lightning.Useful, as long as it didn’t catch the wrong kind of attention.

“I don’t think she’s the harmless choir girl you thought she was,” he murmured to Isabela.

“And I think you read my mind,” she tossed back, blades gripped in either hand as she stalked forward where Weasel was still rolling around on the ground, still moaning about his hands.In a blur of movement that appeared every bit as impossible as the flash of what Varric was increasingly certain was lightning that had shot out of Rose’s hands, Isabela slunk up behind Greasy, resting one dagger against his throat.The other, unless Varric missed his guess and Isabela had decided to branch out, was almost certainly pressed threateningly against his kidney.

Varric prided himself on being the sort of man who knew his cue when he saw it.And this definitely looked like his cue.  

Pulling Bianca lovingly forward, he cradled her stock and let the bowstring creak ominously.The bolt, poised and ready to fly, was aimed directly at Grimy—for a drunk who was complete shit at cards, he was perhaps understandably nonplussed Varric would take such an action against his obviously unimpeachable character.

_I hope he doesn’t piss himself.I hate it when they piss themselves._

 “What’re you doing pointing that at _me?_ ” Grimy squawked, jerking a thumb at Rose, who was now eyeing both Isabela and Varric as if they were an unknown quantity—as if she hadn’t expected any assistance at all.Reasonable, all things considered—this was Denerim, after all.“She’s the one did somethin’ to poor Jim.”

‘Poor Jim’ lifted his head and shot a glare Varric’s way.“She burned me,” he whined, snot running from his nose into his dirty beard.“That ain’t even _possible_.”

“Oh, it’s possible all right,” Greasy spat.  

Arching an eyebrow, Isabela pressed her blade more firmly against Greasy’s throat.“Has anyone told you you’re tiresome when you talk?” she asked, her voice every bit as smooth as silk.

“Seems to me,” Varric drawled, “you might want to take the lady’s advice.”

“We’ve been here the whole while,” purred Isabela, “and all we saw were you louts trying to do something you shouldn’t.”

“If you were here the whole damned time,” Greasy spat back, gulping audibly as Isabela’s blade pressed more firmly against his throat. “Then you saw what that bitch did—an’ you know well as we do what she is.”

Varric lifted a shoulder and shrugged at Isabela.“ _Do_ we know what she is, other than pisspoor at sales?No offense,” he added hastily, sending a brief glance at Rose.

“Very little taken,” the girl drawled, and though her tone was dry and her eyebrow arched, Varric read the tension in her fisted hands, in her rigid spine, in her ashen cheeks.Yeah, he knew what she was.He also knew these three idiots would’ve turned her over to the templars without a second thought.Probably without a first thought.  

“Kitten,” Isabela purred, tilting her head with practiced ease, as if she made a regular habit of lowering her lashes at a woman while holding a man’s life in her hands, “why don’t you run along and find us a nice cozy table at the Gnawed Noble?We’ll be along… shortly.”

A muscle twitched in Rose’s jaw as her gaze moved from Weasel to Grimy to Greasy. She swallowed, looking again at Isabela and squaring her shoulders.“There’s nothing you can do to them I haven’t seen.”

It struck Varric then how… unalarmed Rose looked when Isabela chuckled and said, “Oh, sweet thing.You have _no idea_ what I can do.”A cloud—more like a soot-ridden fog—of worry crossed Greasy’s face.And for good reason.

But Rose just folded her arms and sent Isabela a… speculative look.  

That was new.Usually people responded to Isabela with either lust or—all right, it was usually lust.But she tended to leave people a little more… unnerved than this.Like Greasy.

Rose tilted her head thoughtfully.“You’re going to kill three men out in the open on a—” she paused, then, looking up one side of the street and down the other.“On a temporarily quiet street?In mid-day?To help a—”

“Now kitten let’s not—”

The corner of her mouth twitched upward into a smirk.“To help a woman you don’t even know?”

Isabela blinked twice and it was on that second blink, that second blink with it’s oh, so subtly fluttering lashes that Varric knew they were doomed.He’d had the slowly developing suspicion they were doomed for a while now, but now—oh, now he was certain.It was all there in the eyelashes.“Oh,” she said, with a weighty pause full to the brim with promise. “I’d love to get to know you.”

Oh, yes.Doomed.

“Listen,” he said, “Rose—”

“Not my name, sorry.”She strolled a step or two closer, peering hard at Greasy’s face.“Though, you know,” she said with a pensive sort of thoughtfulness that sent Varric’s horse-shit meter positively singing, “you might not have to _kill_ them.”Looking back over her shoulder at Varric, Rose (not-Rose, as it happened) smiled.“It’s awfully final.Messy, too.”

“While the art of maiming and intimidation is a tragically lost one,” Varric said, “I’m pretty sure that’s not going to be enough to keep these three idiots from finding a templar at the earliest opportunity.Call me crazy, but I’m currently under the impression you’d rather avoid that.”

“There’s something to be said for cutting out a man’s tongue,” added Isabela helpfully.Still in her grip, Greasy went pale.

“Or I could,” she murmured, tapping her chin with a forefinger, “turn them into toads.”

Isabela shot Varric the briefest glance over Greasy’s head. _What’s she doing?_

He replied with the barest shrug of one shoulder. _I have no idea, but I like it._

The reaction from Rose’s … admirers, on the other hand, wasn’t anywhere near as subtle.

“Y-you can’t do that!” Grimy squawked, sending panicked glances to his cohorts, who looked as worried and befuddled as he.“She can’t do that!Turn us into toads!”A worried silence followed.“…Can she?”

“Oh,” Rose said, her smile a warmer, less lascivious and more genuine-looking (“looking” being the operative word, Varric was now certain) than Isabela’s version, “we could fill volumes with all you don’t know.”

Isabela shot him yet another look, even easier to read than the last. _I like this one.Can we keep her?_

“I don’t think that’s quite an enticement away from tattling to the templars,” drawled Varric.

Isabela was smiling now.“And your face wouldn’t be quite so pretty behind bars.”

“That’s why you’re going to cut me a lock of their hair.”

“What d’you want with our _hair?_ ” Weasel whined.

Rose shot another look up and down the street, this one more furtive.True enough their luck had held this long, but even the best streak couldn’t hold forever.Then, narrowing her eyes she crouched down and looked Weasel hard in the face.“So I can turn you into a toad the second a templar—any templar—so much as looks twice at me.No matter where you are, no matter where I am.Poof.Toad.”She smiled disarmingly, revealing a dimple in her left cheek.“Call it insurance.”

There was a flash of silverite followed by a sharp yelp as Isabela sheared a lank curl from Greasy’s head.“For you, kitten.”

Greasy’s face was chalk-white beneath the grit and dirt as Rose took the hair between her thumb and forefinger.“You—you’re _helping_ her?”

Isabela shrugged, then turned the man free.Varric hadn’t ever seen her work so well with someone who wasn’t _him._ “What can I say?” she replied with an easy shrug as she cut locks of hair from Grimy and Weasel, who had by now stopped sniveling about his burned hands.“She’s prettier than you are.”

“And the world can always use more toads,” Varric interjected easily.“Useful little beasts.”He glanced Isabela’s way.“They eat mosquitoes, right?”At Isabela’s nod, he lowered Bianca.“See?Useful.”

“Now,” Rose said, still smiling like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, “what I suggest is that you find your way to wherever it was you were headed.And whenever you see a toad, be thankful it’s not you.”

#

The Gnawed Noble didn’t look like much on the outside—or the inside, for that matter—but the barkeep poured a decent ale and kept a whiskey Isabela didn’t turn her nose up at.Granted, that only meant it poured out when you tipped the bottle, but still, she was a woman with standards.In all their time together, Varric hadn’t quite figured out just what those standards were, but she had them.

“I really ought to thank you again for your help back there,” Rose said, lifting her tankard to her lips and drinking.

“Yes, you should,” agreed Isabela.“Let’s discuss your definition and interpretation of the word _thanks._ ”

“I’ve got to admit,” Varric said, changing the subject as he leaned back in his chair, turning a level eye on the girl, “that was some pretty quick thinking there.”

“Not bad,” Rivaini agreed, tilting her glass to her lips and knocking back the whiskey. “All things considered.”

“Like what?” asked Rose.

Swallowing back the liquor, Isabela slammed the glass down with a sharp clink.“Beg pardon?”

“What things considered?”

“What Rivaini means is you were pretty hopeless peddling that snake-oil of yours back there.”An indignant flush colored her cheeks and Varric held out one placating hand.“Hey, it’s not—”

“It’s not ‘snake-oil,’’’ came her sharp retort.

Smirking, Isabela poured herself a refill.“Oh, kitten, you can drop the act.Varric and I have been all over, and we’ve seen dozens of people selling—”

“I’m an herbalist,” Rose explained shortly, fingers going suddenly tight around the tankard. 

The gesture, slight as it was, sent Varric’s curiosity spiraling—just how much wasn’t she sharing?Probably a lot. Mages—more to the point, apostate mages—tended not to be terribly… forthcoming. 

“Whatever else I might be, I’m a healer first,” she clarified, lowering her voice.“My potions aren’t—they aren’t _snake-oil._ ”

Isabela blinked.“You mean to say you were out there peddling things that actually work as advertised, and _still_ couldn’t get anyone to buy anything?”

She looked down at her hands, pursing her lips in thought.She took a deep breath in and let it out again.“I thought… I thought the—the quality would speak for itself.I thought I’d be able to—slowly—build a name for myself.But, if you’ve seen dozens of people selling stuff that’s nothing more than camphor oil with a few bits of herbs in it, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised they’ll turn down the real thing, should I?”

“It’s not the product, Rose—”

“Name’s not Rose,” she told him again.The sharp edge to her voice had begun to dull.“It’s Amelle.Amelle Hawke.”

 _Hawke,_ Varric realized, suited the girl far better than _Rose._ Something about the long, straight nose and the sharp chin, maybe; it was hard to say.“All right, Hawke,” he said, feeling that indescribable little something click into place as he said the name—yep, that was it—and shot her a level look. “It hasn’t got anything to do with the product.It’s how you sell it.”

“Or, in your case,” added Isabela helpfully, “how you don’t sell it.”

“How long have you been at this?” Varric asked.

“Not quite a month,” Hawke answered quietly, turning her tankard in circles in front of her.

She didn’t say anything else, but she didn’t really have to; there was more of a story there, told in the disconnected fragments across her face—the tightened corners of her mouth, the way her eyes slid slowly to one side and focused far too intently on a gouge in the table, the way her throat moved with a hard swallow as her fingers flexed, tightening on her drink.

Whatever her story was, it felt like a good one.

Okay, so maybe _good_ was a relative term.

“They work, then?” 

At Rivaini’s question Hawke looked up suddenly, her eyes clouded with thoughts or memories neither of them were privy to; she blinked and that cloudiness vanished, leaving in its wake green eyes he was certain were both sharp and watchful.“The potions?” she asked.“Yes.”

Sensing where Isabela was headed, Varric leaned his forearms on the gritty table.“How good?” 

Suspicion flickered across Hawke’s expression, but it lasted only a moment before she shrugged.“I’d go so far as to say they’re superior to anything you’d find outside of an apothecary shop.”

Isabela hummed again, low and thoughtful.But this time Varric had a very good idea of what she was thinking.

“You know,” he said, “if the product’s good, it could be you just need some… lessons in…”

“Marketing,” supplied Isabela.

“Showmanship,” he clarified.

Hawke’s eyes were indeed sharp.Sharper now that the melancholy had ebbed away in favor of wariness.“And who exactly is going to supply these… _lessons?_ ”

“Oh, sweet thing,” purred Isabela, pushing aside the bottle of whiskey and scraping her chair closer, “there’s nothing I couldn’t teach you.Tell me, do you play cards?”

“Easy, Rivaini.Rein it in.”Turning back to Hawke, Varric took a long drink from his tankard and set it down again. “Listen, all I’m proposing is a… temporary business arrangement.”

She wasn’t going to say no.If she was, she’d have said it already.

Instead, what she said was, “Go on.”

“For a… percentage of the profits.”

“Which ought to be substantial, if you’re as good as you say,” Isabela chimed in.

“I am,” Hawke replied mildly.  

It dawned on Varric then that Hawke spoke as if she were stating a fact.Not so much as a whisper of a boast lay hidden in her words.  

More shockingly than that, there wasn’t a whiff of horse-shit, either.

“So the question is,” Hawke went on, looking from Varric to Isabela and back again, “is whether you’re as good as _you_ say.”

Isabela leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs and swinging one booted foot languidly.“I’d say we’re even better than we say.But that’s just me.”

Anyone could create an image.People did it everyday.

And if this girl was the real deal—a genuine healer and herbalist—she was probably right about the quality of her potions.They could work with that.Insofar as showmanship went, insofar as _image_ went, they knew the ropes—between the two of them, there wasn’t anything they couldn’t teach her.The question remained, of course, whether she could be taught, but…  

_But._

But that toad spiel had been as close to a stroke of genius as he could have dared hoped for.You couldn’t teach that.That was instinct.She’d thought of it all on her own, and she’d sold it.And if Hawke could sell the idea she could turn a man into a toad, she sure as the Void could sell some potions that actually worked.

His gut said—it insisted, it shouted, it _sang_ —that Hawke had potential.All she needed was a nudge in the right direction.

“What do you say, Hawke?” Varric asked, reaching one hand out across the table.

Her hesitation lasted only a second, maybe two, but in that time a war waged across Hawke’s face.Then her jaw tightened with determination and she nodded, pushing away whatever misgivings had plagued her, reaching out one hand and clasping Varric’s, giving it a hard, firm shake.

“You’ve got yourself a deal, Mr. Tethras.”

“Come on, now, Hawke.If we’re going to be partners, call me Varric.”

Isabela scraped her chair closer to the table, propping one elbow upon its scarred surface.“Which raises the first matter we should address.What are you going to call yourself, kitten?”

Hawke blinked, looking between them.“…Call myself?”

“You want to survive and thrive going from town to town,” Varric explained, “you’re going to have to craft a persona for yourself.”

“Make yourself _memorable_ ,” added Isabela. Then she frowned.“But not _too_ memorable.”

Varric tilted his head, looking hard at her in the tavern’s dim light.“You got any nicknames, kid?”

Lifting one shoulder in a shrug, she shook her head.“Not really.”

“Hawke’s Herbal Remedies?” Isabela asked, drumming her fingers on the table.“Amelle’s Amazing Elixir?”

“No,” Varric answered, shaking his head, “that’s not it.”That wasn’t it, but there was something— _something._ It’d started coalescing in his brain, like a series of threads all coming together in a cluster.

“Mely Hawke’s Extracts and Elixirs… of Excellence,” suggested Hawke.

“Too wordy,” Varric protested, then stopped.“Wait.What’d you say?”

“Mely Hawke’s—”

The cluster of threads spun tighter together, twisting, _building_ …“I thought you said you didn’t have a nickname.”

“That’s just—”Hawke shifted in her seat uneasily.“It’s just something my family used to call me when I was young.Nobody—nobody calls me that _now._ ”

“I like it,” Isabela announced, throwing out one hand as if an invisible marquee hung above them.“Mely Hawke and her miraculous medicines.”

_Miraculous._

The little cluster of threads lit, suddenly ablaze with inspiration.

“Miracle—” blurted Varric, turning a grin on Isabela and Hawke.“Miracle Mely.”

“Ooh,” Isabela crooned, lifting the whiskey bottle and splashing several generous fingers into her glass.“I _like_ that.Got a nice ring to it.A nice little cadence.”

“Miracle Mely Hawke’s Miracle Tonics?” Hawke asked, eyes narrowed in thought as she tasted the words in her brain, tapping her fingers against the lip of her tankard.

“Well?What do you think, Hawke?Is that… a little more you?”

“You know,” she began thoughtfully, lifting her eyes from the depths of her drink, a slow smile curving at her mouth.“I think that could be me.”

“And do you know what the next part of crafting a persona is, _Miracle Mely?_ ” Isabela asked, propping her chin in her palm and smirking at Hawke.

Hawke didn’t answer right away; she only turned her head, making no attempt to hide her suspicion as she narrowed her eyes at Isabela.“Something about your tone,” she said, “makes feel as if I’m going to regret asking.”

“New clothes,” she replied.“ _Better_ clothes.Maybe Amelle Hawke dresses like a nice girl out of…?”

“Lothering,” Hawke supplied.

“A nice girl out of Lothering, but Miracle Mely—I’m quite certain—prefers something that has a bit of… personality to it.Something eye-catching.Maybe something in red.”She tossed her head and looked over at Varric.“It just so happens somebody still owes me a trip to a certain shop.”

“Still with the hats, Rivaini?” he chuckled.

“Now more than ever,” she said, lips curling into a pleased, feline grin.“Dresses, gloves— _hats._ We have an image to create.”

 


	14. A Horse by Any Other Name...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the second prompt written for Laudanum and Lyrium's one-year anniversary. Written for spark-of-jenius, the prompt asked for the story of how Fenris acquired Agrippa.
> 
> I decided to tell this story taking a slightly different route. :)

Sorrow is not new to her.  

Long ago, when she’d spent her days, young children upon her back, their short, weak legs learning to grip her broad sides, their soft little hands clutching her reins as they learned how to speak to her, pressing against one side or another, laughing delightedly as she turned this way and that.

They called her Lily.  

She knew of sorrow even during those sun-soaked days of bran mash and sugar cubes and uncalloused fingertips stroking her nose.  She knew it even when she ran from one end of the pasture to the other, legs pumping beneath her, the wind snapping at her mane, her tail sailing out behind her.

Her first taste of it had come when Flame, the old gelding—old even when she’d been a flighty yearling, snorting disapprovingly at her from the other side of the fence as she galloped through thick grass, kicking up dew—had refused to eat, his sides growing thin and his coat shabby until every breath in his lungs rattled, until standing had proved too great an effort.  He lay on his side in his stall, unable to get up, unable to do much of anything but breathe, until even that proved too great an effort.

Death, then, had lingered in the stable like an ill wind, long after the old gelding’s body had been taken away, past the children’s blotchy, tear-stained faces, past the master, so solemn and pale, and his wife, her own eyes reddened.  The other horses, though, were untroubled.  Flame had died, safe and warm and loved.  The others whispered amongst themselves of worse deaths, ignoble ends found at the end of whips and in tick-ridden hay, or worse.  Flame, they said, had been lucky.

When that same scent turned up on the master so many years and foals later, when the children were not quite so small anymore, she recognized it.  She didn’t quite understand it then, but death does not come for a short visit, turning up only at the end of a journey; it encroaches by degrees.  Before long the master’s absences grew longer; when he did come to the stables, he came leaning heavily on his wife’s arm, his thick, dark hair gone thin, his vibrant eyes hollow in his face. 

Then he stopped coming to the stables entirely. 

Sorrow hung heavily over Lily’s home like a fog.  She saw it in her mistress’ slouched shoulders, and the children’s shadowed eyes.  Sensed it, when she’d been harnessed to the long, dark wagon upon which a long, dark box had been placed.

Despair, she eventually learned, had a smell, too.  It had grown thick around the barn during the master’s illness, as, one by one, horses were taken from their stalls.  Some went pliantly—others did not.  And every night, after a horse had been taken away, the mistress came to the stables, whispering apologies to anyone who remained.

Every night she came to Lily’s stall last, coming in and pressing her face to Lily’s long neck.

_“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Lily.  I don’t know anymore.”_

With those words she clung tighter and wept, sometimes until dawn, sometimes only until the old groom or one of the children came searching for her, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders and escorting her back to the house.  

Before long, Lily too had to leave.

In the dead of night the mistress came out to Lily’s stall, like so many other nights, and stood with her, fresh straw crunching gently under feet and hooves, whispering apologies that flowed as freely as her tears.  She smelled of despair, and so Lily bowed her head and nuzzled her mistress’ hands, her tongue sneaking out to snatch a taste of salt upon those human palms.   

She didn’t know what was coming.

Dawn brought with it men who’d harnessed her up and led her away.  They’d soothed her, spoke kindly to her, but still she pranced and pawed at the ground, still she pulled at the harness, trying to back out of it.  She squealed her displeasure until her throat ached, but nobody came, nobody intervened.

She changed hands countless times since those happier days, her name changing as swiftly and easily as money exchanged.  Since Lily, she has been Gypsum, Lucy, Queenie, and Moira.

Moira was the name given her by the farming family for whom she pulled a cart to the market.  It was not quite the same as her first life, but it was different enough from the others that she found a certain peace in her work.  She hadn’t even minded the harness, though it had taken some getting used to.  But the farmer had a gentle hand, and while she missed the weight of a body upon her back and the press of legs into her sides, she had a clean stall and fresh feed—to say nothing of children who rubbed her nose or offered her carrots, apples, or sweet squares of sugar in their tiny hands.

—Until a dwarf by the name of Tavus bought her from the farmer.  She did not understand very much about money, only that it was  thing of value to men and elves and dwarves alike, though the latter seemed to covet it more intensely than most.  It was the thing exchanged when she moved from master to master so that she might be acquired—or that someone might be rid of her.

What she did understand was how much she disliked Tavus’ scent—he stunk of sour sweat, acrid and sickly-sweet at turns.  The very night he tried to take her from the farmer’s family, she tossed her head and pranced, avoiding his hands and the halter they held.  But Tavus had very little patience, and at the first opportunity forced her head into the halter.

That night marked the first time she bit him.  

It hadn’t been the first time she’d bitten anyone—in her youth she’d been an ill-tempered thing, and the elven stablemaster had broken her of the habit.  But he had been a different sort of man, kinder than this one, with a thatch of red curls and an easy, relaxed way about him—though his eyes had been watchful, and his reflexes sharp.  That man was not this one—he would never have secured her into too-tight cross-ties without slack enough to move her head. He would not have _laughed_ as she struggled in the cross-ties, hooves slamming helplessly, impotently into the packed gravel floor, panicked cries bouncing off the walls.  He would not have taken a whip to her flank, to her shoulders, to her neck where it cracked about her ears, snapping leather into her flesh until her own sweat stung in open wounds.

The old stablemaster wouldn’t have done such a thing.  Tavus did, and he relished the act.

Without being offered any reason to stop, she continued to bite the dwarf whenever the opportunity presented itself, savoring the deep satisfaction it brought, despite the stinging, biting snap along her back or her flank or her neck—or some combination of the three—that always came afterwards.  

The work for which he needed a cheap animal was to pull a wagon bearing her dead or dying brethren to a foul place where their remains were carted away, not to be disposed of in the sunshine—not safe and warm and loved, as Flame had been—but in the dark with a stench such that threatened to eradicate her memories of grass and bran mash until nothing but a grey, plodding existence remained.  Some days they haunted horseflesh auctions, others they sought out barns with lame or sick animals.  Tavus charged a fee to relieve the owner of the animal, collecting yet more money from the slaughterhouse later.

Day after day after day, she saw what would eventually become of her.  And every night she returned to her too-narrow stall without room enough to turn around.  Every night she stood in uncomfortable metal shoes until her feet grew soft with disuse, aching upon stale hay, thick with fleas and mildew. No wind blew in her face, carrying with it the scent of sun and clover.  These nights she closed her eyes and tried to remember soft hands upon her nose and the crunch of sugar cubes between her teeth.  When she closed her eyes she dreamt of running through open fields, the earth pounding beneath her hooves, running until sweat coursed down her neck and sides, until every muscle burned with pleasant exertion; when she woke, her legs and back thrummed with dull, constant pain and she wondered if she would ever run again—if she _could._  

Night after night, these memories dimmed, growing further and further away until she could barely touch them.

Despair slowly choked her, stinking of urine-soaked straw and moldy feed until she could bear it no longer—until, one day, as Tavus tightened her harness with his thick, cruel hands, the girth pinched her.  She gave a great start, caring nothing for the harness, nothing for the wagon, nothing for Tavus as she reared up with a shrill cry before lunging forward, bucking as she kicked out her back legs.  

Furious and red-faced, Tavus swore and screamed at her, one thick hand clutching the leather whip.  The moment, the very instant she laid eyes upon it, the memory of too-tight cross-ties washed over her.  She reared up again, tossing her head, defiance and fear and _fury_ pounding in her ears.

She refused to be so bound again, by _anyone._

Before the whip could so much as brush her, she heaved her weight forward and kicked both back legs out until the satisfying peal of splitting wood met her ears.  One of the wagon’s wheels rolled free before spinning and falling to its side.  Tavus cracked the whip across her back, her flanks—any inch of her he could reach—but still she kicked again, and again, and again.

And now she is here—the same stall where she has stood for three days, waiting for the wagon to be repaired.  Three days of buzzing flies settling in open weals, of standing on aching legs, sodden straw beneath her hooves.   When it is fixed, she knows what will happen next.  She knows where Tavus will take her.  She knows what it means to be sent to slaughter.  It means death.  She has spent three days staring through rusty bars, knowing what will come—and yet she cannot fear it, for on the other side of death there will be no one to beat her.  On the other side of death hunger will not claw at her belly, ticks will not grow fat on her blood.  She will be beyond caring about such things.

Perhaps this is where she belongs.  The idea does not carry with it the ring of truth, but she wonders if it is true all the same.  Someone has taken away the grass from beneath her feet, and it has been years since she has known the heaviness of a babe in her belly.  Years since she has carried the warm weight of a saddle and a man on her back.  They have long since been replaced with chafing harnesses and the crack of a whip.  It does not feel _right_ , but the further she has come, the more years and miles put between her and a riding saddle, between her and grass beneath her feet, the more often she wonders if this is how a horse’s life is meant to end.  

Had she a choice, however, she’d have chosen to breathe her last in a sun-drenched meadow, the wind tickling her mane, her ears, until her blood slowed and her body stilled.  But creatures such as she seldom get any sort of choice.  She knows that now.

She gives a great shake of her head; the scent-memory of grass and flowers and freedom still live vibrantly, but when she comes back to herself and the stench curling up around her, despair creeps in anew.

Then something… tickles between her ears then, along her neck.  She flicks one ear to the side and back again before lifting her head to peer through the stall’s rusted bars.

There, in the sunlight—she envies anyone able to walk in the light—stands an elf, watching her.

She watches back.

An elf, like her first home’s stablemaster.  But his hair is pale and straight beneath his dark hat.  Strange markings gleam against his skin like—and yet unlike—swirling dappled patterns stretching across a horse’s coat.  He’s nothing like any human she’s ever seen before; his face is hard and his body tense—but for all that, his eyes are every bit as watchful as the old stablemaster’s, and green as any pasture.

He comes closer to her bars; she breathes in, but there is nothing but… calm.  He is steady, solid as the earth.  He is not afraid of her.  He places his fingers against the bars.  She lifts her head, sniffs them, then holds still.

The very tips of his fingers, also marked, gently stroke her nose.

It has been too long since anyone has done so, too long since she has known anything but the whip’s sharp sting.  His fingertips are rough but gentle, slowly coasting back and forth along her nose.  His palm slides a path up between her eyes and has been so long— _so long_ —since anyone has touched her without cruelty that she cannot help but press into his hand, ears resting back, eyes slowly drooping shut—

“Careful of that one,” Tavus says.  “She’s a biter.  Kicks, too.  Ruined my best wagon.  Gonna cost twice as much as she’s worth to fix it.”

The elf startles with a breathed curse and pulls his hand from the bars and her nose.  She swallows her disappointment.  Tavus is a liar, but she can hardly tell this elf that.

“I require a horse,” he says.  It is… strange, she decides.  The tenor of his voice is unusual.  Deeper than she’s heard in a while, but more than that there is an echo of the same steadiness she scented on him.  She pricks her ears forward, listening.

“You came to the wrong place.  These nags are old, lame, sick, or just plain mean,” he says with a nod her way.  “It’s the end of the road for this one.”

At the elf’s uncomprehending look, the dwarf drags a thumb across his throat, below his face, drawn into a mockery of pain.

“They are to be destroyed, then,” the elf says, arching an eyebrow.

The dwarf nods.  “Got no use for her if she’s going to destroy my livelihood.”

The elf looks again at her.  “But this horse isn’t ill?  There is… nothing wrong with it?”

“Nothing but a bad temper,” Tavus replies with a shrug. “And that’s easy enough to remedy.”

“Strange,” the elf replies, narrowing his eyes in turn, “to call death a remedy.”

“It is when you’ve had this ill-tempered beast for as long as I have.”

“What will you receive for her?”

“From the slaughterhouse?”  A beat of silence passes and the elf nods.  He doesn’t say much, a pleasant change from Tavus.  “Twenty silver,” he finally says.  She does not know what she’s “worth,” but she’s almost certain the dwarf is lying. It is what he does.

The elf makes a counter offer, which she does not expect.  “I can give you fifteen.  Surely that will make up for the effort you will have to exert later.”

With a snort, Tavus mutters, “Saving me the cost of a bullet, are you?”

The elf nods once.  “I am not troubled by the prospect of an ill-tempered horse, if that horse is physically sound.”

“She’s sound all right.  Just meaner’n a hungry bronto.”

“Even so.”  The glint of silver flashes in the elf’s hand.

The promise of ready money touches and ignites Tavus’ greed, and he spies another opportunity to squeeze money from the elf.  “You got any tack?”

“Yes, elsewhere.”

Tavus hems and haws, complains he’s being put out, but she knows that sum is still more than he’d have gotten from the slaughterhouse.  “All right.  You convinced me.  Fifteen silver, she’s yours.  No refunds or exchanges, though.  If she bites or kicks, just remember I warned you.”

“I have undergone worse.”

#

He takes her first to a farrier, a man who is both tall and broad, but gentle and soft-spoken.  She’s been shod, but poorly—a matter soon rectified.

“She’ll be sore a bit,” the farrier tells the elf.  “Let her rest a few days, move around on her own.  Go see old Missy in town.  She runs a clean stable and you can get your mare cleaned up.  Just have her put the old girl somewhere she can turn around properly.”

In the hours that follow, the elf picks every tick from her body before washing her down with clean water and painstakingly applying ointment—it stings, which she dislikes, and she expresses her disapproval by turning in a circle around the stall (sore feet be damned), but the elf is not deterred.

“Missy” is short and stout—a dwarf, but she smells nothing like Tavus—and when she comes by the stall it’s with hay and feed.  The smell is such that it’s all she can do not to shove her head through the bars.  Missy simply laughs at her enthusiasm.  She does not care—cannot care; it has been too long since she’s eaten feed that hasn’t been riddled with bugs, too long since she’s eaten enough to fill her belly.

“It’s a good sign she’s got an appetite,” she tells the elf.  “Looked like the Void when you brought her in.”

“I had only just acquired her,” the elf explains, running his hand slowly down her neck as she eats.  

Missy sends a shrewd look her way, but it only lasts a moment before her expression shifts into one of surprise.  “By the stone, you bought Tavus’ mare?”

“I did.”

“Good,” she spits.  “He’s a rotten bastard if ever there was.  Don’t think he ever called her nothin’ but _that nag._ ”

The elf sends her a long look.  “She has no name?”

“Oh, I’m sure she had one once.  But you can’t expect someone who’s got no love for any creature not himself to care about something like a name.  I _think_ the family what had her before named her Moira, but my memory’s not as sharp as it used to be.”

“I see.”

“What do you reckon you’ll call her?”

He does not answer right away.  Though she’s still chewing, she cocks one ear his way—she has had many names, after all.  It should hardly matter what this elf decides to call her.

And yet… it does.

“Agrippa,” he says after a too-long silence.  “Her name will be Agrippa.”

“Nice,” Missy says, nodding her approval.  “She looks like an Agrippa.”  After a pause, she looks the elf’s way again. “What’s it mean?”

“…It means… horse.”

Agrippa.  She rolls the name around in her head, weighing it against others she has worn.  It is what she is.

Yes, she decides.  She will answer to that.

She will answer to him.


	15. Prompt Fill: Concilliabule

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt fill for an "obscure word" challenge.
> 
> Concilliabule: A secret meeting of people who are hatching a plot.

“I need your help.”

Amelle sat, hands folded primly in her lap as she fixed her brother in-law with her absolute most earnest gaze. Her most earnest expression was necessary, which was handy, as it was also _genuine_ , and Sebastian had begun to reach the point where he could tell the difference. 

Sincerity or not, the look he was sending her across the vast expanse of desk was… curious, though tinged faintly with suspicion.“I recall the last time you made a private appointment to speak with me, Amelle, our conversation was…”

“Problematic?” she supplied helpfully.

“That is a word one might choose. One might also choose _mad._ ”

“Fair enough,” Amelle said, as Sebastian rose from his chair and began easing his way around the desk.“But even you have to admit the circumstances—”

At that word, Sebastian froze halfway around his desk and shot her a particularly eloquent look.“Circumstances,” he echoed, pointedly.

“Yes, well,” Amelle replied meekly, shifting awkwardly in her chair.“I didn’t know what was… brewing with Illona.You can’t blame me for assuming the templars were just biding their time before attempting to lock me up.”

The eloquent look shifted very neatly into exasperated disbelief.“Amelle.Do you really believe any of us would have—”

She held up one hand, stopping him. “I did say _attempting_ , Sebastian.”

With that, her sister’s husband chuckled, relenting.“Aye. You did, at that.”

“I have very grave doubts they’d have succeeded.In any case, that’s neither here nor there.I have no immediate plans to go anywhere. Does that… soothe your troubled mind at all?”

Inclining his head, Sebastian gestured at the pair of chairs in front of the fire, tacitly inviting her to sit.“It does help, I won’t deny that.” 

As she walked across the room, feet sinking silently into the plush carpet, Sebastian went to the sideboard and poured two glasses of wine, offering one to Amelle. She took the goblet and sniffed curiously before giving it a careful swirl.Claret.She tipped the glass this way and that, watching the dark red liquid play against the cut crystal, smiling when the flames caught the glass, illuminating the liquid within.She took a sip—it was excellent—and lowered herself into the seat, stretching her legs out toward the fire and crossing her ankles. 

“I don’t mind saying you seem a great deal more at ease this time,” Sebastian remarked as he sat.“Which leaves me even more curious. What could be so dire that you felt the need to make a private appointment?”

Wrinkling her nose, Amelle replied, “Dire isn’t quite the word I’d use.But I do need your help—”

“As you said.”

“—planning a surprise.So I need your assistance _and_ your discretion.”

At her words, Sebastian’s eyebrows lifted, suspicion and curiosity both fleeing.“Well, that removes some of the mystery at hand.And for whom might this surprise be?”

“My sister.”

Schooling his chuckle into a cough—and doing a poor job of it indeed—Sebastian shook his head and said, “And the rest of the mystery is solved at last.”

“I need the assistance of a rogue if I’m going to out-rogue a rogue,” Amelle reasoned, taking another sip of wine.“Particularly one as sneaky and nosy and bloody meddlesome as the current Princess of Starkhaven.”

“And you think I am somehow immune to her, ah, persistence and perceptiveness?”

“Immune? Not especially,” she laughed. “But I do think you’re a good ally to have, if I’m going to be scheming against Kiara.”

Just then, blue eyes narrowed in thought, and Amelle was certain Sebastian was at that moment mentally sifting through every week in every month of the year, to determine for himself what important date might warrant this level of subterfuge.It was too early for Kiara’s name-day.Too late for Satinalia and First Day.And it was much, much too early for Summerday.

“I’m happy to lend whatever assistance I can, but might I inquire as to the occasion?” Sebastian asked, finally.

Amelle smiled like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.And with a properly applied cold spell, it wouldn’t. “A wedding,” she answered, then let a beat of silence pass.“My and Fenris’ wedding, to be exact.”

Sebastian’s reaction was subtle, but no less than what Amelle was expecting.His lips twitched into a barely suppressed smile before schooling the expression into something far more ironic.

“I think,” he drawled, cocking an eyebrow, “the word you’re looking for when you say _surprise_ is actually _revenge._ ”

“You’ve already said you’d be happy to help, and that’s as good as a yes.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean it as a criticism.And I’m certainly not about to revoke my offer.My darling wife does rather have a tendency to believe she’s above such things.”He grinned, swift and a little too cunning for his own good.“I believe it shall be a pleasure giving her a taste, as they say, of her own medicine.”

Leaning back in her chair, Amelle held up her goblet, saluting her brother in-law.“What luck the resident healer’s on your side.”

“In this case, Amelle,” Sebastian replied, leaning forward and touching his glass to hers.“I believe it’s your side I’m lucky to be on.”


	16. Prompt-fill: Mamihlapinatapei

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another prompt-fill for the obscure word challenge.
> 
> Mamihlapinatapei: The look between two people in which each loves the other but is too afraid to make the first move.
> 
> Set in the Laudanum & Lyrium universe: What didn’t happen after the walk to the stables, but should have…

 

“He was a little young for you,” Fenris observed in a dry undertone as Hawke reached into her purse for the sugar cubes.Falcon perked up immediately, and Agrippa craned her neck to see what her neighbor was nickering about.

Hawke did not blush, or look abashed in any way.She just chuckled softly, shaking her head as Falcon licked three sugar cubes from her open palm.She then offered sugar cubes to Agrippa, who took them as avidly as Falcon had.“More flies with honey, Fenris,” she explained softly.“If we need to get out early tomorrow, Jonah will likely be far more willing to oblige us.”

“Do you anticipate requiring an early departure?”

She sighed, withdrawing more sugar and offering some first to Falcon and next to Agrippa.“Anticipate?No.”She frowned at her hand, slick with horse spittle and smears of mostly-chewed hay, and Fenris pulled a handkerchief free from an inner pocket, handing it to her.Hawke’s fingertips grazed his as she took the cloth, and she smiled her thanks as she wiped her palm clean—a softer, slightly self-deprecating, and far more genuine thing than any of the charms she’d aimed at the groom, he realized.“Call it a contingency plan.” 

He watched Hawke fold the handkerchief, carefully tucking away the green streaks of horse saliva before handing it back to him, thinking all the while of contingency plans and his intimate understanding of their necessity.Their errand finished and the horses found wanting for nothing, they walked side by side through the maze of stalls, the quiet broken only by the occasional equine snort, or thumping of a hoof against a stall door. 

When they found themselves once more on the main street, a cool, sweet breeze had kicked up, ruffling Hawke’s skirts and blowing her short hair back away from her face.Smiling and closing her eyes, she tipped her face into the wind and breathed in.

“Do you… wish to return to the hotel?” he asked, chagrined at the husky note in his voice.He coughed, clearing his throat as he turned his gaze back in the direction from which they’d come.Perhaps… perhaps, after Hawke returned to her room, he would join the card game.The notion of such a distraction was… appealing.

A long sigh, and he turned towards the hotel—

“I don’t think so.Not just yet.”

“I beg your pardon?I… was under the impression you…”

“Wanted to spend the whole evening in my room?”She made a rueful noise in the back of her throat.“I did.And now… I’m not sure I do anymore.If I were up there, I’d just be sitting at the window wishing I was out and about anyway, I think.”She smiled.“I understand if you’d rather get back.You don’t need to stay if you don’t want to.”

Fenris looked up one end of the street and down the other.Despite the problems at the hotel, the town itself seemed normal enough, aside from a more obvious templar presence.It didn’t seem any less hospitable than Lothering, and yet he was not terribly inclined to leave Hawke to explore Kinloch Hold on her own.

_And what do you expect to do should she encounter templars who know what she is?Stop them?Aid them?_

He didn’t know.More to the point, it was a matter he was less and less inclined to think about.

“I will accompany you,” he said, turning abruptly away from troublesome thoughts posing impossible questions he was in no way inclined or prepared to address.

“You don’t have—”

He had not expected the simple gesture of offering Hawke his arm to stun her to silence, but when it did, when she blinked once, twice, her eyes going wider, her expression edging into surprise and perhaps disbelief, Fenris regretted it at once.But even in the scant seconds it would have taken him to change his mind, to pull his arm back to his body and act as if he’d never offered it, Hawke slid her arm into his, tucking herself against it.When he looked down at her, a smile the likes of which he’d never seen upon her lips was gracing them just then.Curious.Intrigued. _Pleased._

“For the sake of appearances, right?”

He coughed once, looking down at her arm hooked around his, her warmth radiating through his jacket, the closeness almost enough to make the lyrium in his skin hum in response.

“Of course.”

Their steps took them past any number of quiet shops, and any number of less-quiet establishments, The Spoiled Princess among them, and eventually the quiet crunch of their feet against grit was louder even than the piano music wafting out of the saloon.Clusters of grass shot up through the ground, and as they moved on, the grass thickened into a soft carpet beneath their feet, until the land ended entirely, and they found themselves before Lake Calenhad, still as glass, the moon’s reflection so perfect that the pale glow of it lit Hawke’s features from below, the moon and its reflection bathing her face in ethereal silver light.

A cool breeze came in them off the lake, rippling the surface and Hawke shivered as the reflection shattered, light dancing across her face, catching her eyes. 

“Cold?”

“It’s nothing,” she said, but the skin along her arms had risen to gooseflesh and Fenris shrugged out of his coat, draping it over her before she could protest. Indeed, her lips were parted to voice such a demurral, he was sure, but as the material settled over her shoulders, Hawke’s protest died in her throat.

“Thank you,” she said, looking up as she pulled the edges of the coat more firmly about herself.“I hadn’t realized it was quite that cold.”

“You are welcome.”Any number of things he could have said, intelligent things, helpful things—all of them flew from his lips when she looked up at him, his coat clutched tight at her throat, the moonlight turning the green of her eyes silver.

Amelle Hawke was many things—a mage, a healer, stubborn,smart, and kind.She had allowed him to see her vulnerable.She had admitted to him her fears.

He wondered what _she_ saw when she looked back at him, wondered what those moonlit eyes found in his face—for she was looking at him.Watching him.Reading him.

Then the wind changed, and with its shift, it carried a wave of raucous laughter that shattered the silence like the moon’s reflection.

“It’s— we’ve—“ Hawke began, looking away and biting down hard on her lip.“Maybe we should head back.”

“Indeed,” he replied, not certain whether this feeling in his chest was relief or disappointment.“We should move on.”


	17. Prompt-fill fic: An unhappy marriage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another prompt fill, asking for Fenris/Amelle--the challenge was "an unhappy marriage."
> 
> Set in the "From the Ashes" universe, post-fic.

Amelle cannot quite believe it when Fenris says the word “marry.”But after he has said the word—and said so very earnestly, so… so _Fenrisly_ , the look she gives him is patently quizzical—so much so that his face floods with color and his brows lower into a scowl.

“What—what did you— _what_ did you say?” she blurts, because she is quite certain— _quite certain_ —she’s heard him wrong.Perhaps he said “tarry,” because they were meant to go down to dinner fifteen minutes ago, but had been delayed by—

Oh.By Fenris wishing to speak with her.Followed by a great deal of pacing around their chamber while Spero watched him walk from window to wardrobe to door and back again.And then… then—

“Fenris?”

The color upon his tanned cheeks deepens.“We will not speak of it,” he says brusquely, shaking his head as his hand slashes a line through the air between them.

“Fenris,” she says again, taking a step closer and catching his hand in hers.“Did you ask me to marry you?”His scowl grows stormier and, Maker help her, she didn’t mean to embarrass him like this, but she honestly thought—

His nod, so brief it barely counts as a gesture at all, rather a tiny jerk of his chin, speaks volumes.Then, after a moment of thought, he squares his shoulders and lifts his head, looking her directly in the eye.

“Yes,” he replies evenly, with perhaps a touch of defiance.“I did.”

The breath in her lungs flutters like a tiny bird beating its wings and her breath catches.She hadn’t thought—hadn’t dared assume he’d ever… want such a thing.“Yes.”

A muscle twitches in his jaw, but he doesn’t look away.“That is what I said.”

“No, I—” Fenris starts to turn away, but for once Amelle is too fast for him; she hooks a hand in the collar of his tunic and yanks him close, so close their noses brush, so close she feels the warmth of his discomfiture against her own skin, his breath against her lips. “My answer, you big dummy, is _yes._ ”

#

The wedding, a small affair despite Kiara’s various threats and promises, has to be nudged forward (not back; they neither of them see the point in waiting) once the princess in question—after deep conference with the Royal Healer—realizes quite conclusively that it was not a rare and horrible reaction to some newly imported Highever cheeses that has left her feeling so poorly.

Their glasses sparkle with Orlesian wine, but Kiara toasts them with false annoyance hidden poorly under giddy mirth and apple cider in her glass. 

They cannot leave for a wedding trip; Kiara needs Amelle, despite her protestations to the contrary, and Fenris, still newly installed as the Captain of the Guard, does not wish to leave Starkhaven so soon after taking the post.Instead, they’ve taken a suite of rooms at the top of one of the towers, and both Prince and Princess, sister and brother, have made it clear to the newlyweds they do not expect to be seen for anything fewer than three days.

But before they vanish to their rooms for the night, Kiara pulls Amelle close, one hand resting on her adorably swollen belly as she shoots her sister a devilishly wicked grin.

“Better get started on those cousins, sister.We don’t want your future niece growing up lonely.”

“Or nephew,” Amelle teases back, her cheeks too pink with happiness and wine to flush with embarrassment.

“Niece,” Kiara says firmly, giving Amelle a little shove back in Fenris’ direction.He catches her hand and kisses the inside of her wrist, the light brush of his lips turning her blood warm for reasons having nothing to do with wine _or_ embarrassment, and everything to do with _him._

“What did Hawke want?” he asks as they climb the stairway together.

“A madhouse, I suspect,” she replies with a laugh that echoes off the walls around them.“It’s up to us whether we want to give it to her.”

#

They do not come out of their rooms for four days. 

Duty, however, will call for both of them, and they know it, and so the last night of their sequestration finds them curled up amid a nest of blankets and pillows propped upon a thick rug in front of the hearth.The winter wind blows outside; it’s a low, whistling sound, the force of which causes the glass to rattle gently in its casement.Snow swirls against the window, but the fire is bright and strong, and they have enough wood, enough food, and enough wine to keep them content even if they decided to remain up here another week.

Naked to the waist—and beyond— Fenris props on his elbow and refills her empty glass, firelight catching the wine and crystal and sending a riot of color spilling out across her bare skin as he hands it to her.She’s momentarily distracted by the curving lines that twine up his chest— _still_ —and smiles somewhat sheepishly as she takes the glass.

“Does something amuse you?” he asks, refiling his own glass while Amelle sips, watching the play of muscles beneath his skin as he moves.In that moment she wants absolutely nothing more than to put aside the wine and lick a path from his navel to his throat, savoring the taste of salt on his skin.Heat pulses sudden and hard in her belly and her teeth sink into her lower lip as she very deliberately sets the glass down far enough out of reach she won’t accidentally send it tumbling when she pounces.

“Only that,” she replies, deftly snatching the glass from Fenris’ fingers and placing it beside her own, sliding one leg between his, “I would not be in the least surprised…”

Amelle pauses, dipping her head, tongue darting out to trace a slow path up his abdomen and smiling when he gasps and swears. 

“To discover that we managed…” 

Oh, it’s a slow, leisurely journey to his throat.When she stops, finally, it’s to scrape her teeth every so gently across his pulsepoint.He swears again, this time in Arcanum and she smiles at the low growl in his voice, heat flooding her anew because _she makes him sound like that_.Amelle kisses his shoulder, the line of his jaw, and when she finally reaches his lips—

“To give Kiara the very madhouse she seems to want.”

—Fenris takes hold of her hips and by now they move so well together, so perfectly well, she angles her hips as he moves upward.She gasps, and this time it is _she_ who breathes a curse in Arcanum; her body clutches around him and they move together as firelight makes shadows dance on the walls all around them, their wine forgotten.

#

As Kiara’s pregnancy develops, it becomes painfully obvious Amelle’s has no intention of following her example.It is for the best, she tells herself, tamping down hard on her own disappointment.Kiara needs her right now, and she would be no use to anyone if she were battling her own unwieldy belly.Besides, she knows well enough that these things can sometimes take time.She is in no rush, after all.And besides, her sister needs her.

Her nephew is born, a yowling, beautiful, perfect thing with ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes and a shock of dark hair almost certainly destined to be red.

Once Kiara and the babe—to say nothing of Sebastian, far more frantic and nerve-addled than she’d ever seen him—are finally settled, Amelle returns to her and Fenris’s rooms, just climbing into the bath as he comes in from a day every bit as long as hers.With impatient fingers she helps him strip away his armor and the two of them climb into the tub together.

#

Six months pass, and the baby’s hair is every bit as red as Amelle had anticipated, his grey eyes slowly deepening to those startlingly blue Vael eyes.

Amelle’s stomach remains flat.

There are more important things to concern her, she tells herself.Fenris doesn’t seem to be particularly worried or troubled by the lack of development in this particular arena, and so she tells herself she has nothing to worry about either.Just because it hasn’t happened _yet_ doesn’t mean it won’t happen _at all_ —

She has to remind herself of this most forcefully when she’s running the tip of one gentle finger along the arch of one tiny foot, chuckling softly at the gurgling laugh, though her heart aches with the sound.

#

A year is gone.A year is gone and Amelle should be happy, she _knows_ she should be happy.Her nephew is toddling around on chubby, wobbly legs, her husband is the captain of the Prince’s guard, and she has never seen him more content.Amelle spends more time in the company of mages than she has in the whole of her life.She is safe.She is _free._ She has no reason whatsoever to be unhappy.

It is foolish, she tells herself.Foolish and ungrateful.Amelle had spent her entire life assuming that she would never find someone who could truly love a mage—she was just that certain her mother and father’s romance was a thing of chance, of the stars aligning perfectly, of an entirely different type of magic.She’d believed herself destined for a life of running, of never daring to trust.She’d never even dared entertain thoughts of marriage.Of children.

And yet. Believing you can never have something is not the same thing as not wanting it at all.

Being captain of the Prince’s guard agrees with Fenris.The armor, just different enough from his typical attire to seem strange at first, is something he now wears as if he’d never worn anything else.She knows every buckle, every latch.But now her hands tremble when she helps him remove his armor, now she _wonders_ whether this time—please, Maker, please _this time_ —will be different.

His lips are as they ever were, pressing ardently against hers.His body moves as it ever did.

_Please, this time._

#

Kiara is pregnant again.

“Well,” her sister says, a trifle defensively, “he’ll need a playmate, won’t he?”And though Kiara hasn’t said the words, Amelle cannot help but fill them in herself: _Since you’ve not managed to provide one._ She knows her sister would never say—would never _think_ —such a thing.These thoughts are her own.

“So,” she says, pushing down her sadness where Kiara cannot see it.“Do you suspect it will be a little sister the prince must protect, or a little brother for him to torment?”

“What do you think?You were right on the last one.”

Amelle doesn’t want to think about it.She doesn’t swallow, doesn’t blink, doesn’t give away a single of the tells her sister knows how to read.“Oh, I think a sister this time,” she says lightly, then lifts her hand, pressing it against Kiara’s stomach.“Shall we see if I can exert any influence one way or another?” she teases, grinning widely despite the fine network of cracks extending through her heart.

“I think Madame Spirit Healer’s getting a bit full of herself if she thinks her powers go that far.”

#

Amelle begins to wonder if, perhaps, there is something wrong with her.She can’t _sense_ anything wrong with her when she sends tendrils of healing magic searching through herself.Even with Compassion’s phantom hands on hers, she still can’t find anything wrong.She has scoured through what remains of Starkhaven’s Circle library, she has pored over her own books, and the tomes lining the palace library’s walls, but to no avail. 

There are, evidently, teas she can make that claim to assist in these areas, and it is with self-conscious sheepishness that comes from someone who ought to know better, hesitantly attempting something unlikely to work in the first place that Amelle hunts down ingredients, grinding them into powder and steeping them in hot water.The taste is leagues beyond foul, but for weeks on end she chokes down a cup before bed, hoping—it feels futile, but she _hopes_ —for an old wive’s tale to work, just once.

#

With every day that Kiara’s belly swells, with every month her own body bleeds, Amelle’s heart breaks a little more.Her sister, she is certain, knows by now something is amiss, despite Amelle’s protests to the contrary.Even Cullen, she realizes rather abruptly one afternoon, has stopped asking about Kiara’s condition beyond _And how is Hawke feeling today?_ And whatever Kiara knows, Sebastian knows—he has ceased his gently teasing jibes whenever he finds her playing with her nephew, or looking with what is, she realizes now, barely suppressed envy at her sister’s belly.

Fenris, however, does not speak of it.In fact, they seem to be talking less than they ever did.This doesn’t mean Amelle thinks for a moment he hasn’t noticed.She’s sure he has.Fenris _notices._ That’s what he does.But the fact he isn’t asking or… or saying anything—it shouldn’t surprise her (again: Fenris), but it does, a little, and she begins to wonder if perhaps this was not a development he’d wanted in the first place. 

Amelle tells herself she should be relieved at the notion, but for the first night since they were wed, Amelle has difficulty helping Fenris off with his armor.The buckles and latches she could once free in her sleep now feel unfamiliar and foreign beneath her fingertips.

That night, the first night since they got married, Fenris steps away from her and removes his armor himself.

#

Three months more and Kiara’s belly is so large, so unwieldy, that Amelle begins to suspect—she cannot tell for sure, not yet—her sister is going to have twins. 

The tiny princeling is nearing eighteen months of age now, and his favorite person in the palace varies from week to week to week.This week, he prefers his uncle’s company, and Fenris, rather than looking entirely discomfited at the toddler as he wobbles across the dormant practice yard, brow scrunched in determination before launching himself at his uncle’s legs, her husband crouches to pick the child up, so very mindful of his armor against young skin.The princeling reaches for one of Fenris’ ears but grabs a hank of hair instead, and her husband does the very last thing she expects:

He laughs.Despite grimacing in pain, he laughs as Sebastian reaches for the child, gently extricating little determined fingers from pale white strands.

Something about the sight twinges deeply inside her, like a plucked string playing a single bittersweet note, and Amelle resolves that she will not give up this endeavor.Tonight. _Tonight_ she will talk to him.

But that night Kiara is feeling poorly, and though she attempts to shoo Amelle away (“Go eat, for the Maker’s sake.You’re skin and bones these days, Mely.”) Amelle stays with her sister until she is certain this new addition to the Vael brood is (or _are_ ) safe and well.It is late by the time she gets back to their rooms, and Fenris is already deeply asleep.

By the time she wakes, he is already gone.

#

“What’s wrong?”

Kiara’s eyes are sharp and grey as they watch her over the rim of her teacup.

Amelle’s throat, however, goes dry.“Noth—”

“And don’t you dare say _nothing,_ Amelle Arista Hawke.I know better.”

“Is that so?” Amelle drawls, arching an eyebrow at her sister.“How?”

“Intuition,” Kiara replies primly, taking a sip and setting her cup down with a gentle clink.“Tell me.”

In those moments, Amelle considers deflection.She considers changing the subject entirely.She considers lying.In the end, though, she does none of those things.In the end, she tells her sister exactly what the problem is.Or, more accurately, _problems._ She is barren, she and her husband barely speak, and then, in the midst of Kiara’s questions, Amelle realizes with a cold, heavy, sinking sensation, that she cannot remember exactly how long it has been since they’d made love. 

Amelle and Fenris have been pulling away from each other so gradually—and she too consumed by her own grief to notice—that she has not been able to see just how much distance lies between them until now.

#

“My lady!”Tasia bursts into the little sitting room where Amelle had been reading.Her eyes are huge with worry, and her cheeks are as flushed as if she’d run every step here.

Amelle stands.Her book tumbles to the floor, forgotten.“What is it?”

“My lady,” she gulps again, shaking her head.“There’s no time.You must come.”

Ice pools in her veins.No. _No._ “Tasia, what—”

“My lady—your sister—she… she was on her way to the library—”

Amelle goes even colder.Kiara’s meant to be on bed rest, and it has been an endless pain to keep her sister bedridden, but her flash of annoyance cannot ignite in the face of her sudden, swamping fear.“She was on her feet?I _told_ her not—”

“We moved her to one of the guest rooms.Please, _hurry.”_

Without a second thought, Amelle follows Tasia at a run.She nearly loses her footing going down a flight of stairs, but catches herself, jumping the last three stairs and landing hard enough that her ankles ache with the impact.They run down one corridor and then another, and all the while Amelle is praying—she is praying as hard as she’s ever prayed for anything that Kiara would just be _all right._

When she flings herself bodily into the guest room Tasia’s indicated, it is to find, not her sister in pain, in _danger_ , but rather, Fenris, standing by the window.Spero is sitting primly on the windowsill, her tail wrapped tightly around her body.She meows when she catches sight of Amelle, and Fenris turns.

The door slams shut.

“What?” Amelle blurts, staring at the bed where her sister ought to have been.But no.No, the bed is perfectly made, without so much as a crease in the coverlet. 

 _“What?”_ she says again, spinning on the ball of her foot.The door is closed.

“A thousand apologies, my lady,” comes Tasia’s voice through the wood.“My lady’s orders.”

_I am going to kill my sister._

“She left a note,” the maid adds helpfully.“She’d have done it herself, but… well.The Royal Healer ordered she remain on bedrest until the birth.”

 _I am going to_ kill _my sister._

Spero meows again, an almost plaintive sound, and Amelle looks over at the cat.And her husband.

“She did it to us again,” Amelle sighs.

Fenris takes Spero into his arms, fingers scratching at the base of the cat’s skull.Spero closes her green eyes and lets loose a purr she can hear from across the room, and Amelle is quietly horrified to find herself envious of a _cat._ “It would appear so.”

“There’s a note?” she says, clearing her throat.Fenris nods, indicating an envelope with Amelle’s name scrawled across the front in Kiara’s unmistakable scribble.Inside, the parchment bears only five words.

**_TALK TO HIM YOU IDIOT._ **

Amelle sighs and crumples the sheet, tossing it into the fire.

Still holding the cat, Fenris turns away from her slightly. Though it is subtle, the gesture stings all the same.“If there is something you wish to tell me, I would prefer you state it plainly.”

Amelle looks to the door.If it’s locked, she could probably burn it to ashes if she wanted.Cullen would likely never forgive her the paperwork, but she would persevere through the inconvenience.

“I…”Her voice trails away from her.

“Wished to spare my feelings?”The words are spoken with such force, such vehemence, Amelle blinks.When she looks at Fenris, he’s still holding Spero, but she realizes he’s… holding her like—like a shield.When she lifts her eyes to his face, she sees… Maker, she doesn’t know what she sees in his eyes—she’s never seen it before, never seen such…

 _Disgust._ The emotion she sees is disgust.

“I… beg your pardon?” she asks, voice cracking on the final syllable.

“I have not insulted your intelligence.Do not insult mine.”

Spero’s still purring.Despite being held so tightly, she’s purring.She butts her head against Fenris’ hand, closing her eyes and—

“Fenris?”

“Do not tell me it did not occur to you.Do not think I have not seen the disappointment written so plainly across your features, month after month after month.”He does turn to face her fully then, and it is not just disgust in his eyes, but something more, something worse, something _broken._

“Tell me what you’re talking about,” she asks— _pleads_.But she thinks—and her heart begins to pound mercilessly against her ribs—she thinks she might already know.

“What did Danarius touch that he didn’t spoil?” he spits, and the words are so close to other words, more distant words, and Amelle notes the differences from then to now, but the differences are less important than _what Fenris is saying._

Spero butts her head against his hand again. 

“You think… you think _you_ —“

“It must have occurred to you.”He stretches out one arm, sneering at the markings as if he expects her to do the same.“For I can conceive no other explanation.”

 _Conceive._ She nearly laughs.Tears sting her eyes instead.“You believe we haven’t— we haven’t been able to— You thought it was… you?Your markings?”Her hand comes up to press against her mouth, and the sting of tears worsens.“This whole time?”

Confusion clouds his eyes as he lets Spero pour herself out of the crook of his arm and onto the bed.“Was it not obvious?”

“No,” she says, and the word tumbles forward with such force it’s hard to tell whether it carried a laugh or a sob behind it.Fenris takes several steps closer—the closest he’s been in… Maker, she isn’t sure how long—peering hard at her face.Frowning, he brings his fingertips to her cheek.They come away wet.

“Not obvious,” he murmurs, staring hard at the dampness on the pads of his fingers.When he lifts his eyes, clarity lights the green depths.“You believed—”

She sniffles wetly, dashing at her eyes with a sleeve.“I did.”

“We are a pair of fools.”He takes her hand then.“I thought… you had regretted agreeing to spend your life with me.What… type of man cannot—“ he gestures, a little futilely, with his free hand.“I thought you had come to resent me.”

The mountain of fears, of worries, of imagined slights and resentments… begins to crumble, stone by stone.She cannot feel relief, not yet—she is still too full of confusion shifting slowly from murky to clear.

“I could never,” breathes Amelle, looking at Fenris’ hand around hers, white-lined fingers holding hers firmly.

“You are so certain?”

“Completely.”And with that word, she takes one tiny step, and then another, until Fenris’ arms are folding around her.She rests her head against his shoulder.“Maker, we are a pair of idiots.”

They stay like that for a few moments; with Fenris pressed against her now, she is warm like she’s never been warm before.She has _missed_ him, and, closing her eyes, she slides her arms around his waist, holding him as tightly as he holds her.

When Amelle opens her eyes again, it’s to spy Spero draped lazily across the bed’s pillows.Something about the room is… familiar, and when she lifts her head and looks around, the realization hits her with all the force of a maul to the head.

This is the room Fenris had died in.Nearly died.Nearly enough that the discrepancy didn’t matter.

“I am yours,” he murmurs into her ear, “as long as you wish it.I would follow you to the Void, if you asked.Never forget that.”

“Don’t follow me,” she breathes, tipping her head up for a kiss.She aches inside and out, though now with the fear of what she’d nearly lost instead of the fear of what she might never have. “Walk beside me.Whatever’s next, we’ll face together that way.”There was still no way to tell what might—or might not—happen, but whatever came, no matter how difficult, it would not be insurmountable.

“As you wish it.”

 

 


	18. Fenris/Amelle, sequel to the "unhappy marriage" prompt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's _not_ a prompt fill. It's me not willing to see my babies suffer. ;) A sequel of sorts to the previous chapter's ficlet.

Some things, it is true, are too broken to repair.Some hurts are too deep, some wounds left too long to fester, some words are too cruel to fade.

Amelle Hawke knew too well this was something they could yet fix.She also knew she owed a great deal of thanks to Kiara.If her nosy, meddlesome, insufferable sister hadn’t intervened, Amelle and Fenris would have found themselves in a far different situation than they did now.

Tasia did not unlock the door—not right away, in any case—leaving Amelle and Fenris no choice but to… talk.Something they had not done in quite some time.Too long.When Kiara finally sent her maid to turn the key and release them both, the look Tasia sent her was a curious blend of sheepishness and satisfaction. 

Amelle couldn’t feel satisfied—not yet.She was too full of relief they’d been stopped before either of them did something irreparable.She was too grateful for what felt distinctly like a second chance.The ache of childlessness did not vanish with her sister’s intervention, but it had subsided enough for Amelle to see there were other things in this world worth fighting for, and her foolish love of an elf was one of them.She did not love him for the children she’d thought he could give her; she loved _him._ His taciturn nature, every one of his glowers and the smile he offered her and her alone.She loved the gravel in his voice and the callouses on his hands; she loved the way he hated the cold, hated the wind worst of all and how it numbed the tips of his ears.She had loved Fenris far longer than Amelle had loved the idea of having children with him.

They returned to their rooms after their impromptu sequestration, the walk to their suite far too long and far too short at the same time—she had _missed_ him, missed his touch, missed everything about him, and yet the closer they got to their rooms, the more nervous Amelle became.

Fenris noticed.Of course he did.Before she stepped over the threshold to their sitting room, he laid his hand upon her arm—barely a touch at all.If a question could be made tactile, so were his fingers resting upon her wrist.

So different from the first time.So very different from the giddy joy and relief she’d felt at Illona’s news, at the realization she could stay in Starkhaven.That relief, that joy had lifted something in her, something she’d wrapped around herself, shielding herself from disappointment and heartbreak.

When she lifted his eyes to his, she found solemn warmth in the green irises.

“Only if you are ready.”

Oh, but her heart ached when he said those words.She reached up, brushing the pads of her fingers across his cheek, trailing down his neck.When she finally found her voice, it was too thick to sound like her own.

“I’ve missed you too much to be anything but ready.”

When the door shut with a quiet click, when the lock turned, when the curtains were drawn, Amelle removed Fenris’ armor, clasp by clasp, piece by piece.And with every part she pulled away, another part of her heart fell into place.

“Why do you do that?” he asked as she set aside his greaves—the final pieces she’d removed.

Amelle’s fingers lingered over the armor.“Do you promise not to laugh?”

“When have I ever laughed at you?”

She gave him a wry, rueful smile as she returned to him.“A fair point.”Without armor between them, she ran her palms up his arms to his shoulders, drinking in the warmth of his skin.“It reminds me,” she began quietly, looking not into his eyes, but at the twist of lyrium lines disappearing down the neck of his tunic.“It reminds me of how things… were.Before.You… revealed yourself to me… so very slowly, so gradually, I… didn’t realize I loved you until I already did.”

His soft inhale, the way his eyes widened so slightly—subtle tells, true, but they betrayed his surprise.

“I didn’t know.”

“You never asked before.”

When they came together, there were no… overtures.Fenris lifted his arms as Amelle moved against him.His arms wrapped tightly around her, one hand gripping her shoulder nearly hard enough to bruise, the other resting at the curve of her waist, his thumb skating back and forth across the material of her gown.She pressed her face against his neck, closing her eyes against the salt-sting of tears as his lips went from her forehead to her temple, to the crown of her head.

They made love in the golden afternoon light, tinted further bronze by shafts of sunlight filtering through the drawn curtains.And every kiss, every caress served to remind Amelle there were other things in this world not worth losing to grief and sorrow.

#

True the strain between them had not been irreparable, but neither was it simply or easily fixed.Blame, even when focused on oneself, lingers.Its a voice that slithers up from the ether, taunting and twisting, whispering _should haves_ that no one else can hear or combat.Fenris blamed himself, blamed his markings, blamed a dead magister, and these were self-inflicted wounds Amelle knew she could not heal with words alone.It would take time.

The last days of Kiara’s pregnancy felt as if they’d lasted weeks.Amelle watched over her sister, watched over her—yes, she was certain now—twins, and though the want, the ache for a child of her own, a life growing inside of her had not subsided, Amelle was too keenly aware of how losing herself in that grief had nearly taken so much more from her.She was not, could not be envious of her sister; she loved Kiara, and she loved and spoiled—and would continue spoiling—however many nieces and nephews her sister deigned to give her.The sadness did not go away, but Amelle worked to… temper it by reminding herself of what she had, rather than what she didn’t.

Right now, what she had was a sister who needed her.

When the birth finally came, it was not an easy one.Not since the Arishok had Amelle come so close to losing Kiara, but as the first hazy streaks of dawn pushed away at the night sky, two thin voices wailed in newborn counterpoint as Tasia ushered in an anxious, sleep-drawn Sebastian to dote on his wife, whose relief to finally be done with the past nine months was just as great as his anxiety.

The danger finally past and the hard work done, Amelle left her new niece and nephew in the care of several competent nurses, looked in on her sleeping sister one last time, and made her slow, weary way to bed.

When she opened the door to their rooms, it was in time to find one of the maids leaving, clutching a delicate—but empty—tray.The girl bobbed a quick curtsey, then hurried on her way.Putting a hand out to catch the door before it closed, Amelle pushed it open on silent hinges and peered inside.

Fenris, who ought to have been up and out in the practice yard already, was sat on one of a pair of plush armchairs in front of the fire, not in his gleaming Starkhaven armor, but in a dark tunic and leggings, his feet bare, a book in his lap.Two steaming mugs sat on the small table that stood between the two chairs.

Amelle let go of the door and let it swing shut.At the noise, Fenris looked up.

“Twins,” she said.“All fingers and toes accounted for.”

“And Hawke?”

“Maker’s balls,” Amelle groaned, rubbing the small of her back and rolling her shoulders as she dropped into the vacant chair.“She’s fine.It… I don’t want it to ever get that close again, but… she’s fine.”

From the corner of her eye, Amelle saw the way Fenris’ dark brows knitted together in a frown as she leaned over the arm of the chair and looked down into the pair of mugs.One held dark tea, while the familiar scent of warm milk and lavender honey drifted up to meet her nose.

“Oh, _Fenris_ ,” she all but sighed, taking the mug into both hands and inhaling deeply before taking a long sip.“Oh, that’s perfect.Maker, _you’re_ perfect.”She sunk into the chair and closed her eyes as she tipped her head back.“Not that I need the help.I think I’m going to sleep for a week.”

“There is a bath drawn for you as well.”

“My fondness for baths is well known, after all,” she murmured before succumbing to a wide yawn.“Shouldn’t you be down in the yard?”

Fenris set the book aside and stood, offering Amelle his hand.When she took it, he pulled her gently to her feet.“Sebastian agrees the men will do without me for a day.”

“A whole day?Whatever shall you do?”

Fenris tipped his head to the side and reached up to brush aside a stubborn lock of hair that had fallen against Amelle’s forehead.“Whatever my wife requires of me.”

#

Months passed and the daily routine shifted again, as it had with the birth of the tiny princeling.The twins were hardy and healthy—enough so that Kiara wondered aloud more than once how their mother had managed three children, and without any extra help.But despite Kiara’s joking tone, Amelle still heard the sorrow hidden in her sister’s words—an old wound opened up to bleed again.They both of them would have done anything for just a word of their mother’s advice over the intervening years.

The routine was such that when an outbreak of illness spread like mad wildfire through the servants’ quarters, it surprised no one more than Amelle.High fevers and wet, merciless coughs that weren’t quite so mana-draining as the lyrium-sickness she’d worked against in Kirkwall, but enough that four days straight of healing the sick servants—pushing the illness out of them rather than treating them with non-magical means so she stood some some sort of chance to keep the sickness from spreading further—left her exhausted and mana drained, though without a single nosebleed.

Though Amelle ought to have recovered from such extensive mana-usage after a couple of days, she began feeling worse instead of better.The malaise was never quite enough to keep her bedridden, but was always enough for anyone and everyone from Fenris, Kiara, Sebastian, Cullen, Kinnon, and Tasia to remark on her appearance, which was, for the record, _not good._

On one particular morning, after Fenris had reluctantly donned his armor and left, there came a brief knock at her door, followed by Kiara poking her head in.

“Hey, Mely.”

Spero, curled upon the pillow next to her head, meowed a greeting.Not to be outdone, Amelle pulled her face from where she’d pressed it against her own pillow and stared blearily at her sister.It took exactly two seconds for her to sit up, more alert than she’d been in days. “What’s wrong?Is it the twins?Is it you?Don’t tell me that blasted fever’s back.”

With a rueful chuckle, Kiara sat on the edge of the bed.“No.It’s you.Honestly, can’t I check up on my little sister when she’s feeling poorly?”

Amelle sank against the pillows as Spero settled down with a purr, flicking her mottled tail.“Fenris didn’t ask you to check up on me, did he?”

“No…”Kiara answered, though she looked worryingly evasive.

“Thank the Maker.”

“But Cullen may have mentioned something.”Kiara wrinkled her nose.“He’s terribly fretful sometimes.Was he always that way?He reminded me of Cupcake something awful this morning.”

“Lovely.”Amelle rolled her eyes.“I’ve got the resident templar reminding you of your dog.I’m _fine._ Just… tired.”

“You’ve been _just tired_ for a week.”

“And what do you propose we do about that?”Amelle rubbed a tired hand over her face.“I suppose we could call the royal heal—oh, wait.Scratch that.”

“And you’re _sure_ there’s nothing wrong with you?”

“As sure as I could possibly be.”

Another knock sounded, and it was Kiara rather than Amelle who bade the newcomer enter; behind the door was one of the maids, carrying a breakfast tray laden with tea, toast, fruit and bacon for Amelle.The room was redolent with the smell of bacon before the young woman had taken two steps into the room.Kiara leaned back and inhaled ravenously, pushing to her feet to steal a slice from the tray.

Amelle, on the other hand, groaned before shoving back the blankets and leaping from the bed, moving faster than she had moved in days before emptying the contents of her stomach in a mercifully empty water basin.

Bacon forgotten, Kiara was around the other side of the bed in a flash.“Mely—?”

“Take it,” Amelle ground out, coughing and spitting just before another wave of nausea clutched at her.“Take it out. _Please._ ”

“Leave the toast and tea,” Kiara ordered the maid, her tone allowing no room for argument.“Take everything else away, please. And send Maribel and Rina up to… bring a new basin.”She paused.“And… possibly a bucket.”

Once the maid had left, Kiara guided Amelle’s arm around her shoulders and stood, easing her back towards the bed before pouring her a glass of water.Amelle took the glass gratefully, taking a sip and then a longer drink before handing it back.“Feeling better?”

“Bacon has forsaken me,” Amelle mumbled, crawling back to her cocoon of blankets.“How would _you_ feel?”

But Kiara didn’t answer.In fact, she didn’t answer for an unusually long span of time.When she did speak again, she spoke slowly, choosing her words with care.“Do me a favor,” she said as Amelle curled on her side and pulled the coverlet up to her chin.“Stay in bed today.”

Something about that tone pricked Amelle’s concern, and she looked up at her sister, pushing down on the flutter of worry that had kicked up in her chest like a frightened bird beating its wings.“Why?” she asked warily, despite the rocky uneasiness that was making her head ache and her stomach tilt.“What’s wrong?”

Kiara chewed on her bottom lip a moment before sitting down again.“I don’t think anything’s… _wrong_ , exactly.”

“Then what—”

“Mely?When did you bleed last?”

Lifting her head up off the pillow, Amelle blinked, and then frowned.“I don’t… know.”Her heart gave a sudden thump that was equal parts hope and fear—hope at what it could be, and fear it mightn’t be that at all.She swallowed hard and sat up, truly _thinking_ about it now.When?When _had_ she—

“When ought you to have—”

“Weeks ago,” Amelle supplied distantly.“I kept thinking perhaps—things had been so busy with the twins and then that fever, I thought… I just thought…”

Sweet Andraste.

“Thought it was something else entirely,” murmured Kiara, running a hand over Amelle’s head, brushing her hair back with a maternal air that now fit her sister every bit as well as her leathers and bow.“Well,” Kiara said, her own voice suddenly unsteady despite her attempt at briskness, “normally I’d suggest we call for the healer.But since she’s already here, I don’t suppose you’d mind telling me what your… professional opinion is on the matter?”

It struck Amelle just what Kiara was proposing; she was already shaking her head, even before Kiara had finished speaking.“I don’t want to check, Kiri.I don’t—I don’t want to.What if—what if it’s nothing?”Her heart clenched.“What if—”

“And what if it’s everything?”

 _But what if it’s nothing?What if it’s nothing_ again _?_

“I can’t.”

Kiara fixed her eyes on Amelle’s.“You must.”

An eternity passed before Amelle finally nodded, trying—trying so very hard—to quiet the doubt and fear swirling madly through her head.And, lying back against the pillows, she rested one trembling hand upon her abdomen, pressing her other hand hard against her mouth. 

_What if it’s nothing?_

The room turned blurry and as Amelle blinked, tears spilled from the corners of her eyes, trailing down to either side of her neck.She breathed in, but that breath was too shallow, too unsteady, too full of hope and fear and tendrils of disappointment that would not be banished—Amelle she couldn’t quite reach her mana.She tried again, breathing deeper—and again, with steadier breath, until her mana responded, warm and alive as it had ever been, like an old friend, simply waiting for her touch.

A furry head butted against her temple and Spero picked her way off her pillow to sit placidly by her shoulder, purring.

Finally—had it ever taken her so long to twist and shape her mana before?—finally, the hotcold thrum of magic pushed and pulsed inside her, stretching and searching—searching as if she had even the first idea what she was searching for, and she felt suddenly, painfully _foolish_ —

There.

_There._

The glow from her magic sputtered out with Amelle’s gasp.

Turning wide eyes toward her sister, Amelle’s words came out no louder than a whisper—it was all she could manage.

“Kiri?Get Fenris.”


	19. Obscure word challenge: Petrichor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Amelle/Fenris--Petrichor: a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather
> 
> Set sometime after "From the Ashes."

No one had told Amelle how hot Starkhaven could get.How utterly absurdly, impossibly, infuriatingly, mercilessly, _stupidly_ hot _._

But it had been. 

Oh, until a few weeks ago the breeze had come in off the river like a balm, a kiss against too-warm faces, rustling curtains and keeping the weather from tipping over into something unpleasant.It had been nice, in fact—her and Fenris’ rooms faced the river, and they’d spent many a night sitting in front of their windows drinking pale wine and ripe berries.On occasion Amelle felt the need to send a cold burst of air through the room if for no other reason than to put a chill upon the sheets, but it was hardly necessary.

This week, though, when Kiara had asked Amelle if it would be at all possible to make it snow in the great hall, Amelle was only half certain her sister had been kidding.This week the sun beat down on Starkhaven without so much as a tease of clouds in the sky, nothing but unmarred blue for as far as the eye could see.The river, rather than providing a breeze, instead became a source of some of the most inconceivably miserable humidity Amelle had ever had the supreme misfortune of experiencing.The air was heavy and still, hot, and, worst of all, _sticky_.Relief eluded them all; there was nowhere, inside the palace or out, that provided any sort of refuge.Even the willow tree Amelle was sprawled beneath seemed to droop in the heat.With a sigh, she dropped the book she hadn’t been reading for at least the last fifteen minutes and lay back in the grass.It didn’t help.She stared hard up at the willow branches, willing the slender boughs to bend, to sway just the tiniest bit with a breath of breeze.

They didn’t.

Her stare turned into a scowl as she wondered if flash-freezing the tree down to the roots so it collapsed upon her in a shower of ice would _actually_ kill her.

Tasia, at least, had been prepared for the heat, acquiring gowns (Amelle still had no idea how she did it; whether Tasia marched into the nearest milliner’s shop with her list of demands, or if there were dozens of royal seamstresses at her beck and call to sew at the drop of a hat—a very fashionable hat—either of which were perfectly believable scenarios, given the sorts of things Tasia had managed in the past) appropriate for such… intemperate weather.Even now Amelle wore one of the thin, fluttery frocks—a gauzy confection that left arms and shoulders bare.Between that and the rosewater-dampened handkerchief she kept on hand, using controlled streams of mana to cool the water in the fabric never quite to the point of freezing it outright, Amelle thought there was a chance she might just survive her first Starkhaven summer.

On the other hand, possibly there was some merit in the idea of crafting a blizzard for the great hall.Oh, the snow would melt, but with very little mana at all she could ice it over again.It could turn out to be fun—the Starkhaven Circle taking turns keeping the hall frozen over until this bloody miserable heat finally broke.

There was one person, however, who wasn’t bothered by the heat in the least.The same person who’d been nearly unbearable in the thick winter months, who’d grumbled curse after curse in Arcanum until Amelle had found herself picking up a few particularly vehement phrases, much to Fenris’ surprise.

 _Vishante kaffar_ was a particularly satisfying invective.Who knew?

With a breath of mana, Amelle turned her damp handkerchief cold, just shy of freezing, and stood.Perhaps she could convince a certain elf to neglect his itinerary for the rest of the day.She wondered if the request of his company in a cool bath would be enough to entice him.Fenris didn’t mind the heat, but that didn’t mean he’d taken leave of his senses entirely.

Amelle was entirely unsurprised to find Fenris training in the practice yard.She was similarly unsurprised to find said yard entirely uninhabited, save for her evidently deranged love of an elf.He moved against an invisible foe, the blunted greatsword singing as it cut through the air, forcing a breeze where there was none. Amelle watched, smiling despite the heat, despite the wretched humidity, as Fenris slid from one attack pattern to another, graceful as any dance.She watched his legs as he stepped, lunged and twisted, imagining the play of muscles beneath lyrium-etched skin; her eyes traveled up his back, drinking in the shoulders made broader by the very greatsword work he was engaging in now.

 _Lanky,_ Isabela had called Fenris once.Perhaps… perhaps at first glance, yes.But then Amelle’s eyes drifted to Fenris’ arms, white lines twining and traveling across tanned skin and compact muscle as he held the blade perfectly still for several long seconds before cutting it through the air and starting his training patterns anew.

“Maker’s breath,” she said, strolling out to the yard.“You’re making me hotter just watching you.”Which was entirely true.Just not… necessarily in a way that had to do specifically with _heat._

Fenris turned, pale hair plastered against his head, face flushed with exertion, chest heaving.

Amelle blinked.Twice. _Vishante kaffar, indeed._

“Amelle,” Fenris said, rolling out his shoulders as he returned the practice sword to the weapons rack, and _oh_ her eyes never left his shoulders as he moved; her fingers _itched_ to trace the lines of lyrium, the pattern of muscle beneath the skin.She licked her lips, trying not to imagine the taste of salt against her tongue.“Is there anything amiss?”

_Well, I was coming out to complain to you about the heat, but you have managed what all the rosewater-scented handkerchiefs in all of Thedas couldn’t, Fenris.I’m not complaining anymore._

“No,” she said, realizing the word had come out slightly strangled.Amelle cleared her throat.“No.I only thought I’d… come see how you’re doing.In the heat.”

The look he shot her was wryly amused.Wryly amused for Fenris, in any case, which mostly consisted of the barest tilt of his lips and _Maker,_ she was a lucky woman.

“You are already aware the heat does not trouble me as it does you.”Fenris dark brows drew together, knitting in concern.“You, however, appear flushed.Are you unwell?”

Unwell.Not the first word that came to mind.Amelle swallowed.“No.No, I’m feeling… I’m feeling fine.”

Unconvinced, Fenris closed the distance between them, concerned eyes locked on her face.“You are certain?”

“Oh, yes.”

Maybe it was the tremor in her voice she couldn’t quite control, but concern melted into something else, something like _understanding,_ followed swiftly by _speculation_ , and they really needed to get up to their rooms _immediately_ otherwise she was going to…

Well, she wasn’t entirely sure what she was going to do, but Amelle was pretty damned certain it had the potential to be the height of impropriety. 

Then Fenris’ fingers lighted on the side of her neck where her pulse danced beneath her skin—a condition his touch did precisely nothing to alleviate.“You are warm.”

“A little,” she admitted.

And then, most incongruously, the faintest whisper of a cool breeze ruffled her hair. _Did he do that?_ she thought feverishly. _Did I?_ A glance to the sky, though, revealed clouds gathering and darkening above the river, marring the pristine azure expanse with all too welcome blue-grey clusters. The wind picked up, turning even cooler.

Fenris frowned at the clouds above, but Amelle was all but convinced he was the only one doing so.“Rain is coming.”

“So it would seem.”

The first few drops fell, dampening the ground around them; Amelle breathed in the smell of it and tipped her head back.Cool points fell in tiny splashes across her face, her arms, her bare shoulders.

“We should go inside.”

Inside.Yes.Probably for the best.Inside, where they could open the windows and watch the storm roll in.Inside, where just a word could mean a cool bath waiting for them.Yes.Going inside would be for the best.

Amelle breathed in the scent of rain again until her lungs ached with it, until the smell of rain filled her head, until it seemed to sink deeper and deeper into her, reaching the place where her mana thrived. 

A raindrop splashed her lip.She licked it away.

Fenris was here.The rain was here. Comparatively speaking, inside was boring. 

“I don’t think so,” she murmured, hooking one arm around his bare neck, slowly pulling him closer, not caring if his leathers snagged on her gown, not caring if his sweat-damp arms wrinkled the material.Fenris’ own eyes had gone dark with promise, his lips tilting into a tiny smile that was for her and her alone.Another raindrop splashed against her shoulder, sliding down to her collarbone.Another hit her nose.Her scalp.

“If a storm’s coming in,” she murmured, brushing a slow kiss across Fenris lips as the scent of rain rose up all around them, “I think I want to watch it from right here.”


	20. Obscure word prompt-fill: Duende

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fenris/Amelle--Duende: Unusual power to attract or charm.
> 
> Set during DA2.

Fenris wonders, not for the first time, if Hawke has bewitched him.There is no reason it should be as hard to turn from her as it is, no reason he should be fighting the urge to return to her, to lose himself in the warmth of her bed, her arms, her mouth.But it is that possibility he could lose himself that makes him continue on down the stairs, one step after another after another.He does not want to lose himself, not again, not after that brief glimmer of memory had taunted him, the knowledge of himself, who he’d once been, had dangled so very temptingly before him, just out of reach, before disappearing again entirely.The whole of his memory had vanished into firelight and green eyes, the buzz of barely restrained magic spilling out onto his skin, waking the lyrum trapped within.

A lifetime, subsumed by one woman’s touch.

He’d only wanted happiness—and even then, Fenris would have been satisfied with a breath of it, a taste of it.Or so he’d told himself.Indeed, he’d had a taste and Hawke had given it to him, a bare trickle of something warm and sweet as honey across his tongue.But with every stride, with every closed door he puts between himself and Hawke, that warmth turns colder, that sweetness grows bitter and dry until it’s little more than ashes on his tongue. 

It is a taste only the burn of alcohol will ease.

 _Ease_ , he thinks with a derisive snort.He knows Hawke’s touch and taste will not be erased so easily. His own memories were more easily pushed aside into darkness.

Worse, it had been a gentle touch and not a slap that had swallowed his memories—kisses sliding from frantic to gentle, the softness of parted lips, the slow, deliberate path of a questing tongue along lyrium-marked skin…

She fills his head, and if anything the further he walks, the more distance he puts between them, the more brightly the memory of her touch lives in him.

The door to the mansion closes behind him, his only company moldering remains and scattered moonlight filtering through a tattered roof.He is a fool, that much is certain, but whether Fenris is a fool for leaving Hawke, or for going to her at all, he cannot say.

A year passes.Two.

Three.

They do not speak of what transpired.Hawke is as cordial toward him as she ever was.They sit and play cards with the others; sometimes she sits next to him, and sometimes she does not.She frequently calls on him to accompany her on jobs and errands, and he hates himself that he still waits, still hopes to hear her knock upon his door.

He never answers those calls too quickly.When Hawke knocks, Fenris waits in the long shadows of his ruined bedchamber, half hoping she will turn away, and half dreading the moment when she undoubtedly will.

But Hawke always knocks, even if he doesn’t answer, she always comes in, her bearing and expression sheepish and apologetic, as if this is truly his home and privacy she is intruding on. 

He wants to shout at her that he doesn’t deserve such courtesy, doesn’t she know that?

But Fenris does not shout.She asks if he has the time (of course he does; what else has he to occupy him?); she asks if he minds and, oh, that stings every time.He walked out on her, he left her, and Fenris hears condemnation every time she asks if he’d _mind_ joining her, as if she expects him to tell her he has no use for her work, her companionship.She asks as if she does not want to place such an imposition upon him, as if she knows how much her presence bothers him.

She’s right.It does.But not in the way she likely imagines.

In the main, if Hawke speaks to him at all, their conversations are genial but brief.She does not come to the mansion just to spend an evening drinking wine before a dancing fire in companionable silence. 

She very seldom allows herself to be alone with him.

It stings, and yet it is no less than Fenris deserves.

No, she has not bewitched him.Whatever has been done to him, he has done to himself.He deserves this, has brought it upon himself.

He will not admit—will never admit—how much he misses her.


	21. Ficlet: What Morning Brings

Fenris has never seen Hawke like this before.

It is no surprise the necromancer has struck her hard and deeply, a well-aimed blade slid unerringly between her ribs.It is a blow that would drive any other to their knees.But Hawke remains upright, defiantly so.Admiration, fierce and sharp, lances through his breast.She will end him; he will see to it.

That night a wild, ragged edge curls and twists all through Hawke’s magic; her mana courses freely, one spell after another, after another—one spell _into_ another.She throws her hands to the sky and summons a storm of lightning and fire the likes of which Fenris has never seen her conjure before.Flame leaps from her fingertips as if it had simply been waiting there, simmering beneath her skin.It sears the air and scorches the walls as bolts of lightning leave smoldering holes in the floor.Thick bolts of ice shoot upward from the floor, their points as sharp as any sword.

Never before has he witnessed such righteous fury from Hawke.Hawke, who jokes to cover her discomfiture when indeed she is discomfited. 

Sincere Hawke.Kind Hawke.Reasonable Hawke.

Not this night, though.This night fire blazes in her eyes despite the tears tracking down her cheeks.Her flames burn bright and hot, devouring paper—Quentin’s notes and books and letters, burnt to flecks of black ash—and old crates that catch like so much kindling.But none of it is hot enough to dry the tears that turn her eyes unnaturally bright, reflecting every gout of flame that pushes, hot and insistent, from her staff. 

Nothing softens the line of her jaw, now more angular as she grits her teeth and bares them, frost, fire, and lightning pouring from her hands.There is nothing of her healing spirit this night.For there is nothing it—or she—can heal.

Fenris will not soon forget the foundry’s stench, the foul combination of blood magic, of corruption and decomposing flesh.And he will never, never for as long as he lives, forget the sight of Leandra Hawke, jagged stitches dark against death-pale skin as she stands on unsteady legs, as the necromancer speaks the last words he will ever utter, with the last breaths he will ever draw before Hawke ends him with fire as bright and as hot as has ever pulsed from her fingers.

After the fiends are defeated, their remains thick, foul sludge upon the filthy floor, black smoke plumes and billows upward, lost to the night sky. The foundry still stinks of death, but now it is joined by the stench of grief, of smoke and fire and burning things. 

Bodies.Remains.Secrets best left to flame and ash.

And yet, as the foundry burns around them, Hawke takes the stitched remains of her mother into her arms and sinks to her knees, heedless of the building burning around her as she cradles her mother’s body until life—or a poor imitation of it—fades like an ember that has grown too cold too fast.

#

Weeks pass. 

Grief makes Hawke sharp and hard, like a freshly forged blade.The magic that spirals out from her hands or streams from her staff is still—like her—too sharp, too hard, too bright.A mage’s mana is connected, Fenris knows, to their breath.Every spell Hawke casts resonates like a sob thrumming the air.

Whether she is broken or still in the process of breaking, Fenris does not know.What he knows is that Hawke still aches.Still grieves.Still mourns.He does not begrudge her this, but it pains him to see her assume a mask of normality.Of—at times—joviality.He does not believe it.Her jaw is too sharp, her eyes too hard.

Her magic feels to him as if its unraveling along its edges.Over time, the sob in her mana turns into a long, keening cry.She pushes herself too long and too hard, and before long it is nearly impossible to tell fire from ice or lightning, for how white with heat her flame has turned.

She _is_ flame.And lightning.And frost.She is all these things made manifest, and just as untouchable.There is nothing of the lips that had yielded to him, warm and pliant against his mouth.Nothing of the fingers that had traveled so very gently across his brands.Nothing of the soft breath of surprised laughter that had caressed his ear the very moment they came together, skin against skin.

Nothing of the wounded, betrayed eyes he’d turned away from—fleeing into the night before the sun rose again, bringing with it a new day and white lilies at her door.


	22. Prompt-fill: Royalty AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt-fill for an AU challenge, asking for Amelle/Fenris and a Royalty AU

Seheron was hot.

No, Amelle decided.“Hot” wasn’t quite adequate a word, for it was lacking both description and nuance.It was a sticky, miserable heat that pressed in on all sides.Even the wind provided no relief, for it was as hot as the air, and twice as damp, blowing in off the ocean.Taking in a deep breath, she gripped the ship’s rail and watched the lush spread of green atop white sand and blue water grow from a tiny speck to a slightly less tiny speck. 

A sudden swell made the ship bob and her stomach lurch in reply. _Watch the horizon, they said.You’ll be fine, they said._

“Feeling a little queasy, Highness?”Varric, one of her father’s most trusted advisors— and oh, it was hard not to think of him as her chaperone on this little trip—looked as miserably seasick as she felt.

“I hate the bloody ocean,” she grumbled, leaning against the railing and closing her eyes before forcing them open again. _Watch the horizon, watch the horizon, watch the—_

“At least you’re in excellent company there.”

Seheron bobbed on the horizon and Amelle clenched her eyes shut, swallowing hard as her stomach threatened to rebel. Again.She was mostly certain it was only a threat, as there was likely nothing left in her stomach with which to rebel.“Remind me again why I thought this was a good idea?”

“It’s excellent practice,” Varric replied, echoing the very words she’d been saying—boasting—in the weeks leading up to this little venture.Amelle wrinkled her nose at him and he sighed.“Make all the faces you want, Highness, but it is excellent practice.”

Shaking her head, she looked back out at the island.“They aren’t going to take me seriously.What made me think soldiers were going to take me seriously?‘Why, yes, Papa,’” she chirped, “‘I’d be happy to go to Seheron in your stead!Nothing would please me more!’”She clamped one hand over her eyes.“This was a mistake.This was such a bloody mistake.”

“It’s a simple trip,” Varric soothed.“Morale boosting.Talk with the men, see if there’s anything they need, collect reports, bring it all back home again.”

“Bring it back home again,” she groaned.“Across the ocean.”

“Then again,” Varric countered, spreading his hands and not missing a beat, “there’s also something to be said for holing up in a bungalow until the oceans dry out and we can walk home.”

Bracing her hands against the railing and breathing in a slow deep breath, Amelle let it out again, just as slowly.But the damned ocean wouldn’t stop moving.“That is a fascinating proposition and one worthy of further discuss—”But a sudden deafening, pounding rattle shook the deck beneath Amelle’s feet and very nearly startled her out of her skin.A short burst of a scream escaped her lips as she gripped the ship’s railing more tightly.

“What in the Maker’s bloody name is _that_?” she shouted over the noise.

“The ship’s dropping anchor,” Varric yelled back.

Resisting the urge to clap her hands over her ears, Amelle looked pointedly out at Seheron, still an impossible distance away, still bobbing. _“Why?”_

When the noise had finally passed, Varric gestured at the island.“Nowhere to dock,” he explained.Seheron’s surrounded by coral reefs and sandbars—we’d run aground if we tried to sail any closer.

“Please don’t tell me we’re expected to swim.”

He chuckled, a sound not entirely reassuring, but shook his head.“No, Highness.Commander Leto’s coming out to meet us.”Reading her expression impeccably, he added, “On a boat.The men row out to meet us.We’ll be briefed, and then we’ll row to shore with the officer and a small contingency.”

She’d heard much of the commander from her father, whose visits to Seheron had cemented the king’s fondness for the officer.He was, Amelle already knew, a no-nonsense sort who believed in doing something right if it was to be done at all.He was evidently a Seheron native whose path into the king’s navy was one her father did not discuss, for all it made shadows dance in the lines of his face.

 _The commander is a good man,_ he’d told Amelle while preparing her for the voyage. _He’ll not take kindly to your particular brand of malarkey, either, so be on your best behavior._

She’d smiled, filing the information away even as she replied, _Mother is of the opinion my particular brand of malarkey is entirely indistinguishable from yours._

His answering expression was an arch sort of scowl she’d seen on her own face more than once. _All the more reason for me to issue such a warning._

#

As the tiny boat got closer and gradually less tiny, Amelle breathed deeply, attempted to settle her stomach and smooth out her nerves.Poise was important.If you maintained poise, everything else followed.

Two midshipmen, whose names she did not know, came on deck, accompanied by Commander Leto.He was not a tall man—taller than Amelle, certainly, but there were few people in her acquaintance who weren’t—but his very presence made up for any lack of height.More than made up for it, in Amelle’s opinion.He stood upon the deck, hands behind his back, his expression impassive, every crease pressed, every button polished, his dress uniform made up of the crispest white and deepest blue.His eyes—green, she could not help but notice—were sharply assessing, as if taking the measure of her ship, her crew, and, most worryingly, _her._

All in all, this was unfortunate for Amelle and her poise.

“Is His Majesty unwell?”

Amelle smiled not unkindly.“He suffered a riding accident which left his leg broken but mending, and his pride significantly damaged.I am here in his stead.”

The officer said nothing for several seconds, during which the waves crashed their low rhythm all around, lapping the anchored ship, rocking it gently.Amelle’s smile froze as she willed her stomach to settle.However, when the officer turned that deeply green gaze down to Varric’s level and said, “I am afraid the men will not take the princess’ presence here seriously,” Amelle swiftly forgot her queasiness in the wake of sudden indignation.

She also forgot she’d expressed a nearly identical sentiment less than an hour before.

“I beg your pardon?” she blurted, before clamping her mouth shut hard enough to make her teeth click. _Poise,_ she reminded herself. _All poise, no malarkey._

The officer inclined his head, but rather than meet his gaze, Amelle’s eyes dropped to the curve of his neck where tan skin met pristine white.Damn him, he wasn’t even _sweating._  

“With respect, your Highness, I said—”

“I heard what you said, serah,” Amelle interrupted smoothly.A muscle twitched in her jaw and the smile at her lips loosened into something more genuine.“And I did not fail to note you said it to my advisor, rather than addressing me directly.” 

Commander Leto’s shoulders tensed as he lifted his chin, a hint—more than a hint, really; more like a shove—of defiance in his unwavering gaze.“I meant no disrespect, your Highness.”

Amelle wasn’t sure to what degree she believed that.

“I see,” she replied slowly, thoughtfully.“Then allow me to see if I comprehend you correctly, for I fear I do not.My father, the king, considers me a capable substitute—which is by no means an equal replacement, but a competent substitute nonetheless—for his presence in this particular case. But the men who sail and serve beneath his flag… will not react well to my presence?”

Impassivity rippled with what Amelle strongly suspected was irritation—it rippled, but did not leave completely.“They are aware you have never… served, your Highness.”

“Am I to understand that means I am without empathy?I am here, serah, so my father’s men— _your_ men—do not feel as if they have been forgotten in this place, so far from home.They will have the king’s ear, though perhaps not as immediately as they might like.Or are you of the opinion I am so ineffective I cannot manage relaying information to my father?”

That same muscle in the commander’s jaw twitched again.Amelle lifted her chin, her expression as impassive a the commander’s own.

“My observation had nothing whatsoever to do with your competence, Highness.It was merely an observation that you haven’t the same… camaraderie with the men.”

“The same camaraderie as my father has.”

“Just so, Highness.”

“With respect, Commander Leto, if I am to succeed or fail here, I will do so on my own merits or failings.The men do not know me, which I grant is a fair point—one that only means I must work harder so they may get to know me.” She smiled again.“I am my father’s daughter in more than just name.”

“Make no mistake, Highness.I see the resemblance clearly.”


End file.
